Beechworth Lunatic Asylum in Beechworth, Victoria is reportedly haunted by several ghosts of departed patients. The asylum was open from 1867-1995. Ghost tours are run nightly.
Looking for a hauntingly good time in Australia? Then I highly recommend spending an evening on a Ghost Tour of the Beechworth Lunatic Asylum. Located in the beautiful, scenic town of Beechworth, just a few hours from Melbourne up in the Victorian Highlands, the Beechworth Lunatic Asylum - later renamed the Mayday Hills Hospital - is the second oldest asylum in Victoria, dating back to 1867. The Asylum held a total of 1200 patients when full, and over 3000 patients died within its walls in the 128 years the hospital operated. Its doors closed in 1995, and since then has operated as a campus of La Trobe University, run as a hotel and conference center.
Adam and Sharon Wynne-Jenkins started operating Ghost Tours of the Beechworth Lunatic Asylum, with a focus both on the ghost stories itself but also the history of the hospital. Generations of their family have worked at the Asylum, and so they have numerous stories and lore of the hospital, patients, and workers to share.
Their Ghost Tours have become the most popular such tours on mainland Australia. Only the Ghost Tours offered in Port Arthur, in Tasmania, attract more visitors. Tours are offered every evening; on some evenings, as many as twelve tours are conducted.
Now, there are many reasons to visit Beechworth beyond a good scare at the Mayday Hills Asylum. (Beechworth happens to be one of my favorite towns in Victoria, and I constantly tell my husband that if we move to Australia, this is where I want to live.) But if ghost tours are your thing - or even if they are not your thing - I highly recommend spending an evening on one of these tours.
I won't spoil the tour by revealing all, but if nothing else, the history of the hospital and the way the guides bring to life the stories of the hospital are worth the tour itself. You get a chance to go into some of the older buildings, including the treatment rooms, some of the inmate rooms, and a truly creepy basement area, as well as see some of the beautiful grounds. You'll get to see the Ha-Ha Walls, too. These are walls built with a sloping trench on the inside of the Asylum, making them 9 feet tall to the inmates within, preventing escape. Outside, they seemed much, much smaller, creating the illusion that this wasn't effectively a prison.
To be admitted into the hospital was relatively easy - a relative and two doctors signatures (a single doctor signature after an amendment in 1951) was all it took. But to get out, it required 8 signatures. Thus many patients, once admitted, were never released. One of the stories talks about an 11 year old boy who died at the asylum at the age of 84.
Some of the stories are heartbreaking, and some sad and horrifying. And while we didn't see any ghosts, I will say that the tour left many of us definitely a little chillier than when we went in. I got an intense headache in one building that went away the second I stepped out, and one of the rooms in the basement left me decidedly uneasy. Was it a ghost, or just me getting caught up in the tour itself? Decide for yourself - take the Beechworth Mayday Hills Asylum Ghost Tour the next time you are visiting Victoria.
One of the ghosts most often seen at Beechworth is that of Matron Sharpe her apparition has been seen in several different parts of the hospital. Matron Sharpe's ghost has been seen in the former dormitory area, which is now part of Latrobe University's computer rooms. Witnesses have seen her walking down the granite staircase and into one of the classrooms. Matron Sharpe was apparently very compassionate toward the patients, which is uncharacteristic of the era.
One patient whose ghost is thought to haunt Beechworth is Tommy Kennedy. Tommy was well liked at the hospital and was given a job as a kitchen hand. Tommy actually died in the kitchen which is now part of the Bijou theatre, it is here that people have said they have felt the sensation of someone tugging at their clothes or poking their ribs.
The Reaction Hall was an area where patients could sing, play music or perform in plays, on Sundays the hall doubled as the chapel. In 1939 the hall became a cinema, where inmates could come in to watch movies. There are two common sightings in the hall, one is of a young girl, who approaches women and desperately tries to communicate with them. The other ghost has been seen in a window that was once part of the Bell Tower; the apparition of an elderly man facing away from the window is often seen.
The Grevillia wing was the section of the hospital all patients feared, it has been closed for 13 years, and now in a derelict state. As medication wasn't introduced until the 1950s, restraints such as straightjackets and even shackles were commonly used as well as electro-shock treatment. Electro shock treatment was widely used in the hospitals early days and there are stories of mass treatments in which almost the entire patient population was shocked in one session. When the shocks were administered the patient's bodies either splayed out backwards with force or contracted inward into a fetal position, which ever position ligaments would snap, bones were often broken and teeth shattered.
There are two common sightings in Grevillia, one is thought to be that of an unknown male doctor, his apparition has been seen wandering the corridors at night. The other is Matron Sharpe whose ghost was often seen in this area by the nurses who worked at Mayday Hills. They would report seeing the Matron sitting with patients who were due to have electro-shock treatment. Those who say they've witnessed this say the room was icy cold, but her presence was comforting, and seemed to bring a sense of reassurance to the patients.
