The castle is said to be haunted by a White Lady after dark, dressed in a “snow white garb”. Some sources suggest that this is the shade of a Lady Margaret who was the mother of Sir John of Afan, whilst others say that it is Jane de Afan, one of the last occupiers of the castle.

Peter Underwood lists Afan Castle under Port Talbot, yet he is recounting the same details he wrote about some 15 pages earlier under Aberavon Castle (above). Therefore, this appears to be a duplicate entry! What may be the cause of the problem is the confusion with place-names, some of which were anglicised, whereas other retained the correct Welsh spelling. So, we are to either believe that the a different White Lady called either Lady Margaret or Jane de Afan haunts this castle, or we have to accept that this is a mistake over place names.

During the 18th century, a poltergeist at the farm of a Mr William Thomas in the Ffrwdwyllt Valley made the life of a servant girl a misery for about two years. According to accounts, it would follow her, blow out her candles, hitting her on the head, pulling clothes from her bed, and putting blankets on her bed during hot summer nights! On one occasion, it threw the family bible around. There was one report of a visible manifestation, when it was said to have appeared as “a thick darkness, which was terrible to enter into”.

According to reports, a poltergeist once troubled a house in the now-demolished Inkerman Row, Taibach. It’s most common trick seemed to be the moving of furniture.

This mine was said to be haunted by a number of apparitions, which the suspicious miners believed would foretell a forthcoming tragedy. Ghosts included a “strange man in oilskins”, phantom trams, ghostly horses, corpse candles, odd smells and unusual noises. However, the most alarming was the Dog of Darkness which was unusually red in colour, but allegedly appeared before an underground explosion. It became known as the “Red Dog of Morfa”.