Visitors to a stately home where Henry VIII once lived are fleeing in terror after the face of his first wife – Catherine of Aragon – appeared on a pine tree.
Visitors to Ashridge House in Herts turned heels and fled after the disgruntled face appeared in one of the trees.
One visitor, who managed to get a photo of the tree before fleeing, said he’d been to the stately home ‘loads of times’ and loved the 190-acre gardens, once tended by Capability Brown.
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He said, however, that after a trip to the Grade I-listed house – lived in by Henry VIII for from 1539 – this week he was ‘shocked’ when he spotted the ‘scary’ face.
(Image: Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
The tree – complete with two eyes, a nose and very realistic mouth – is the doppelgänger of Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
Catherine married King Henry VIII in 1509, becoming Queen of England, but by 1526 the King was infatuated with Anne Boleyn and demanded the marriage be annulled.
Pope Clement VII , however, refused to annul the marriage, leading King Henry VIII to take religious matters into his own hands and have the marriage annulled so he could marry Anne Boleyn. Catherine died in 1536.
Speaking this week, the visitor, a 45-year-old who works in the armed forces – who asked not to be named – said he could barely believe his eyes when he saw the face.
(Image: Getty Images)
He said: “My wife and I had just been to the cafe at Ashridge House and had a lovely lunch, but as we strolled around the park I felt like something or someone was watching me.
“I couldn’t shake the feeling, and then my wife started to get the heebie-jeebies too.”
He said that when they reached a circle of pine trees, they both felt the air ‘turn cold, and looked round to find the tree “staring at them”, just a few feet away.
He added: “We both felt the air suddenly turn cold and looked round at the same time and saw the face in the tree.
“I took a couple of photos, but I started to feel very uncomfortable and we looked at each other and just ran.”
He said that when they got back to the cafe, they overheard a group of people talking about how they felt they were ‘being watched’ and about how the place felt ‘haunted’.
Another group of tourists told him they had experienced a ‘coldness’ while in the gardens – and that they had been reading about King Henry VIII and his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
He added: “When I looked up photos of Catherine of Aragon I couldn’t help but see the resemblance to the face in the tree.
“What’s freaky is that I’ve never seen it before – and I come here all the time – but it must have been there for many, many years.”
(Image: Bettmann Archive)
The gardens at Ashridge House are also home to an oak tree planted by Queen Victoria when she was a four-year-old child in 1823.
The house, which was initially a monastery after opening in 1283, was used in filming for The Crown on Netflix and Amazon Prime’s Pennyworth.
The gardens have appeared in Maleficent, Sleepy Hollows, and Jonathan Creek, with the home’s grand staircase inspiring the one in Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films.
The Whomping Willow in the Harry Potter movies was also filmed using a tree in the area.
A spokesman for Ashridge House said it was once the ‘royal residence of King Henry VIII’
(Image: Heritage Images via Getty Images)
He said: “Step back into history and elegance in our luxury Grade I neo-gothic country house, set in 190 acres of beautiful landscaped gardens.”
He added: “Ashridge House is the perfect backdrop.
“Harry Potter was inspired by grand staircase in the Main Hall, and the original Whomping Willow was found on the Ashridge Estate.
“It has featured many times in film and television series due to its distinction as an area of natural beauty.
“Scenes for Maleficent, Plotlands, Sleepy Hollow, Jonathan Creek and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire were filmed here – and more recently it has been used as a location for The Crown and Pennyworth TV series.”
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