03/10/2014 – Gourock’s very own 15th century castle was up for sale — and the Tele went ‘through the keyhole’ to see it.

Castle Levan is on the market for nearly halfa-million pounds — and came complete with battlements looking over the River Clyde and a ghost known as The White Lady.

The owners are Jan and Lydia Edlman from the Czech Republic, who came to Gourock in 2002 after working for the BBC World Service in London for 11 years.

Jan was a translator, journalist and editor and Lydia, 60, was a production assistant.

They got fed up with busy London and fancied moving to Scotland after visiting the country several times.

Jan said: “We saw Castle Levan advertised on the internet and immediately fell in love with it.”

The couple ran the four-bedroom Stirling Drive property as a bed and breakfast from April to October.

It had three stars from the Scottish Tourist Board and a total of 14 rooms on four floors linked by spiral staircases.

It was so vast that Jan and Lydia used walkie-talkies in the early days to keep in touch with each other in different parts of the building.

Lydia, who keeps the castle spick and span by herself and is also a talented artist, said: “We get lots of guests from America and Canada who love the historical character of the building — and our ghost.”

Jan, who had also lived in two castles in Czechoslovakia — which was separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993 — explained that the White Lady was Marion Montgomery, who was sentenced to death in the second half of the 16th century for torturing and killing tenants of Castle Levan.

He said: “The sentence was rescinded, but she died in the castle’s dungeon, which is now covered over and lies underneath one of the bedrooms.”

Lydia, who loved horror stories and was a big Stephen King fan, said ghost investigators visited the castle and took pictures which showed a blue orb invisible to the naked eye.

She said: “They told us that is a sign of the supernatural.

“We had guests who took a ‘selfie’ picture of themselves on a four-poster bed — and when they looked at the picture they saw a woman’s face between their heads!”