Finding the Lost Children of Craig-y-nos

Abstract

Craig-y-nos Castle (meaning ‘Rock of the Night’) lays claim to be the most haunted castle in Wales. Perched on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, it was the estate of Adelina Patti, the world famous opera singer, from 1878 until her death in 1919. Within the castle grounds, Patti built an ornate theatre where she sang for audiences of up to 150 guests including British and European Royalty. The Patti Theatre is now a Grade 1 listed opera house and headquarters of the Opera School Wales. On Patti’s death, her third husband, Baron Rolf Cederstrom, sold the estate to the King Edward VII Welsh National Memorial Association, established in 1910, to combat tuberculosis in Wales. As the Adelina Patti Hospital, it served for 40 years as a sanatorium for children and young women, at a time when the incidence and death rate of TB in the industrial areas of south Wales were higher than anywhere else in Britain. TB claimed the lives of 12 young men and 17 young women a year in every Welsh community of 6000 people.