Maltese palace dating from 1586, now the President's summer residence; its Blue Lady legend has conflicting versions, and we read no document behind it.
The story
Verdala Palace stands in the Buskett Gardens, in the limits of Siġġiewi, Malta. English Wikipedia, our main source for the history, says the site began as a hunting lodge in the 1550s or 1560s under Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette, in a landscaped area used by the knights of the Order of St John for hunting. In 1586 the lodge was enlarged into a palace under Hugues Loubenx de Verdalle, whose name it bears, with more embellishment following in the 17th and 18th centuries. Wikipedia adds that Zafire Hatun, an Ottoman sultan’s concubine captured by the Hospitallers in 1644, was moved there as her health failed and spent her last days.
From 1798 to 1800, during the French blockade, it served as a military prison for captured French soldiers. Under the British it was turned into a silk factory, then abandoned and left to decay, and was restored in the 1850s by Governor Sir William Reid. It was a small temporary hospital in 1915-1916, appeared on the Antiquities List of 1925, and was restored again in 1982. Since 1987 it has served the President of Malta as a summer residence.
The legend
The palace’s reported ghost is the Blue Lady. English Wikipedia says she was Grand Master de Rohan’s niece, who was due to marry a suitor she disliked and jumped from her bedroom balcony, and that she is seen wearing the blue dress she died in, which was her wedding dress. The Times of Malta in 2009 and MaltaToday on 31 October 2024 give another ending: the suitor locked her up and she fell from a window while trying to escape. A page on the Stronghold Nation community site, a weak source, makes her Rohan’s daughter, shut in a tower attic. The identity, the manner of death and the period therefore all vary.
The link to Rohan would place the drama in the late 18th century, the period of his rule as grand master (1775 to 1797). We read no document from that period, and none of the pages we read cites an archive. English Wikipedia’s ghost paragraph cites a single source, a Times of Malta article, “Malta’s most haunted”, of 16 March 2009. That article follows Joseph Attard’s book The Ghosts of Malta, which we did not read.
Most witnesses are generic. MaltaToday says she is reported in mirrors and on balconies, and occasionally by guests of the annual August ball. One witness has a name. The Times of Malta, following Attard, says that while Lord Methuen was governor (it gives 1915 to 1919) a guest, a certain Howard Jones, was lodged in the Blue Lady’s room and asked who the lady in blue reflected in his mirror was, and that most of the staff had seen her too. MaltaDaily on 2 September 2025 dates a guest’s mirror sighting to 1917, citing no source. The Moon Mausoleum blog says the story comes from a diary of Capt. Robert Ingham, the governor’s aide-de-camp; it gives no reference, and we did not find the diary. Our American newspaper search for “Verdala” returned only an unrelated 1903 item.
So the traceable chain is short: a guest’s story placed around 1917, reaching us second-hand through a 2009 newspaper article and later unsourced pieces, and modern retellings with different details. The history of the palace as we read it, a hunting lodge, a prison, a hospital and a residence, records no young noblewoman’s death.
What remains today
The palace survives as the President’s official summer residence. It was earlier used by the British governors, together with San Anton Palace, and by visiting royalty and heads of state, according to English Wikipedia.
Visiting
As of the sources we read, the palace is generally closed to the public, apart from the yearly August Moon Ball, a charity event for the Malta Community Chest Fund. This status may change, so check with official Maltese sources. We give no information on how to approach the building; please respect its role as a residence.
The ghosts
The Blue Lady of Verdala
Said to be Described as a niece of Grand Master de Rohan; another version makes her his daughter
A young woman in a blue dress, supposedly her wedding dress, is said to be seen in mirrors and on balconies. She is said to have died after refusing a forced marriage, by jumping or falling from a balcony or window. Accounts disagree on the details.
- Apparitions
First reported: About 1917: Howard Jones story, via Times of Malta 2009 after Joseph Attard; the year from MaltaDaily 2025 and a blog. Reported by: Howard Jones, a guest of Lord Methuen (via Times of Malta 2009), and guests of the annual ball (generic, via MaltaToday 2024)
Photographs
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Where it is
The circle shows the general area only. Open on the full map
Sources
- Wikimedia Commons category : Verdala Palace — Wikimedia Commons
- Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc — Wikipedia
- MaltaDaily article on the Blue Lady legend — MaltaDaily, 2025-09-02
- Malta's most haunted — Times of Malta, 2009-03-16
- MaltaToday article on Maltese ghost folklore, including the Blue Lady — MaltaToday, 2024-10-31
- The Blue Lady of Verdala Palace — Stronghold Nation (community site)
- The Haunting of the Blue Lady at Verdala Palace — Moon Mausoleum (blog)
- Verdala Castle & Verdala Palace & Rocca Verdala — German Documentation Center for Art History - Marburg Picture Index via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
- Verdala Palace — Deutsche Fotothek via Europeana · http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
- Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.
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