Meggernie Castle Ghost: The Severed Bride of Glen Lyon

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated August 25, 2026 · How we verify

Halfway up Glen Lyon, where the river Lyon runs down towards its meeting with the Tay, a five storey keep stands with a long mansion house grafted onto its side. The Meggernie Castle ghost is one of the more grotesque stories in the Perth and Kinross corner of Scotland, because the apparition guests describe is not a woman but the upper half of one. The building’s history is a matter of charters and architecture. The tale of the chest in the tower is folklore, and this piece keeps the two on separate shelves.

Meggernie Castle at a Glance

Location: halfway up Glen Lyon, in the heart of Perth and Kinross, central Scotland.

Construction: the oldest surviving fabric is loosely tied to a date of 1585, on a site that carried an earlier thatched keep.

Height: five storeys, with a square tower at each corner of the keep.

Twentieth century owners: Sir Ernest Wills, 3rd Baronet, from 1920 until his death in 1958, then his son Lt. Col. Sir Edward de Winton-Wills, 4th Baronet, until the sale in 1979.

From Clan Gregor to the Campbells of Glenlyon

There was something on the site before the present castle: the evidence points to a thatched keep of some sort. The exact date of the oldest existing part of Meggernie has never been settled, but there is evidence of it belonging to Clan Gregor, and of the MacGregors being its original builders. They were slowly driven out of their lands, which is how the Barony of Glenlyon came to the Campbells, the MacGregors’ rivals and neighbours.

The paperwork survives in the document known as the “Register of the Great Seal”, in which King James VI grants the Campbell family ownership of land in the area to form the Barony of Glenlyon. The chief of that barony is said to reside in “the Tower named Meggernie”. The bequest is dated 4 March 1603, which ties in loosely with the traditional construction date of 1585. A slated roof was added to the earlier thatched keep by Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, and further additions followed in later years.

Five Feet of Wall and Four Corner Towers

The walls run to around five feet, roughly 1.5 metres, in keeping with the building’s defensive purpose, and the castle stands five storeys tall. Each corner carries a square tower bracketed out from the main body of the building. The original castle had few windows, and those it does have are narrow slits, a style entirely of its period and repeated in numerous other fortified castles and keeps of the same date. A more modern mansion house has been attached to the old keep since its construction, long and low, extending from one side, though its style still answers the original.

The Menzies of Culdares and the Locked Chest

Several ghost stories attach to Meggernie. The best known dates from the period when the house was occupied by the Menzies’s of Culdares. In the telling, an early Menzies of Culdares married a very beautiful woman much younger than himself, grew jealous of her youth and looks, and murdered her in a fit of rage. He concealed her body in a locked chest in one of the castle towers, absented himself for a time, and on his return put about the story that his wife had drowned while the two of them were travelling in Europe.

The locals believed him. He remained anxious anyway, and resolved to move the body to the nearby churchyard. He cut it in two and managed to bury the lower half in the graveyard one night, leaving the upper part in the chest. Before he could return for it he met with foul play. The next morning his own body was found at the entrance to the tower where the upper half of his wife still lay. He had clearly been murdered, nobody was ever tried for it, and his death remains a mystery. None of this is documented in the way the Campbell charter is documented. It is a story handed down, and it should be read as one.

What Guests Say They See in the Tower Rooms

The reported sightings are unusually consistent with the legend, which is either corroboration or the ordinary pull of a good story on a nervous overnight guest. Most accounts come from people staying at the castle who describe the upper part of a woman’s body floating through the air.

One visitor claimed to have been woken in the night by the sensation of a red hot kiss on his cheek. Sitting up, he said he saw the ghostly form of a woman’s torso moving away from the bed towards the wall before passing through it into the next room. The lower half is not forgotten either: claims have been made that it haunts the nearby churchyard where it was said to have been buried.

The Bones Found During the Victorian Restoration

The detail that keeps the tale alive is an alleged find. During restoration work at the castle in the mid nineteenth century, workmen are said to have unearthed skeletal remains of the upper half of a woman’s body. The remains were removed for burial. Sightings of her ghost were reported after that, which is worth noting because burial is usually where a story of this shape is meant to stop. There is no inquest, no name and no date attached to the discovery in the accounts, so it belongs with the legend rather than the record.

Finding Meggernie in Glen Lyon

Meggernie sits well up one of the longest and most enclosed glens in the country, with the river Lyon for company and a single road for access. The castle passed through the Wills baronets across most of the twentieth century, from 1920 to the sale in 1979, and the sources here say nothing about public access, opening times or tours. Treat it as a private house until told otherwise, admire the four corner towers and the low mansion range from the public road, and do not go looking for the tower stair.

Address: Glen Lyon, Perth and Kinross, Scotland

See Meggernie Castle for Yourself

Sources

• GeoHack – Meggernie Castle
• trove.scot
• Wikipedia: Meggernie Castle