Spooky stories at the National Trust

Woodford Academy’s female phantoms

As you wind your way up the Great Western Highway into the Blue Mountains, you’ll pass the oldest complex of colonial buildings in the Blue Mountains – Woodford Academy. A former inn, guesthouse and boarding school, this charming building has a rich history stretching back to the 1830s. Local myth also suggests the house may be occasionally visited by two female ghosts who lived tumultuous and tragic lives in the Blue Mountains.

The first is known as the Lady in White. Her real name was Mary James, and she was a squatter in the Woodford area during the 1830s. Mary and her husband built a slab hut near the site of today’s Woodford Academy, from which they ran a sly grog shop selling rum to local militia, settlers and bullock drivers.

While life was tough raising six children in slum-like conditions, the James’ had one thing going for them – they had a spring with a good water supply for their business. When a new neighbour, Thomas Pembroke, moved in he immediately set his sights on the spring for his own grog business, and tried to have the Jameses evicted. With Pembroke’s influence, the police soon deemed the James’ property illegal and evicted the family.

Mary, who had given birth to her seventh child only six weeks earlier, tragically took her own life. Almost 200 years later, Mary James’ legacy has evolved into that of a troubled spirit who lingers around Woodford Academy, occasionally appearing in the attic window and frightening visitors.

Is it true? Mary’s tragic past is certainly historical fact, but the jury’s still out about whether she lurks the Academy’s halls. In an interesting twist however, another local myth surrounds Mary’s daughter, Caroline – known as the Lady in Black.

At the age of 13, Caroline married William Collits, the son of Pierce Collits (Pembroke’s father-in-law). Not long after, Caroline left William and began a relationship with her sister’s husband, John Walsh (who, incidentally had already been found guilty of two murders without charge because the only witness disappeared).

One night, while walking the dark roads between Mount Victoria and Blackheath, Caroline and John got into an argument. When John later showed up at the local police station with blood on his clothes and claiming that he and Caroline had been attacked, suspicions were raised. The next day, Caroline’s body was discovered and John was arrested for her murder.

For Kate O’Neill, Chair of the Woodford Management Committee and Academy researcher, the Lady in White and the Lady in Black are tragic tales of local women in the early 19th century.

When asked if she believes that their ghosts live on at the Academy, Kate laughs. “I feel sorry for poor old Mary James. When’s she going to get some rest?! Some people have said that Woodford Academy is spooky, and there are reports of curtains twitching in the attic. But the Academy is one of the draftiest places around.”

Regular ghost tours are run at Woodford Academy for the curious, and Kate says they’re taking a sensitive and heritage-conscious approach to the tours. “I want to tell the stories of the people who had a good life here. Our focus is less on the scary and negative.”

Still, Margaret Harrison, a gardener who has volunteered at Woodford Academy since 1995 recently commented that there hasn’t been much activity from the ghosts. “Maybe they’re happy because their stories are being told,” says Kate.

Old Government House: the curious and the cranky

Ever heard of a haunted tree? Rodney Holman has been leading the ghost tours at Old Government House for 12 years and says there’s a tree in Parramatta Park that consistently lights up his electromagnetic field detector (also known as the Ghost Meter).

“The park’s been really interesting for us lately,” says Rodney. “If I ask one of the ghost tour visitors to walk around the trunk, the Ghost Meter will activate. A few people on the tour have said they saw a little girl by the tree.”

Creepy? When you’re doing all of this at night – yes. Even more so when you learn that the tree is close to the obelisk marking the spot where Lady Mary Fitzroy, wife of Sir Charles Fitzroy, former Governor of New South Wales, received fatal injuries in a driving accident in1847.

This, however, is just the beginning of Old Government House’s spooky stories. Staff and volunteers have reported the sound of footsteps behind them, the mysterious smell of cigar smoke hanging in the air, and multiple sightings of a woman in period costume standing at the bottom of the house’s grand staircase.

Rodney shares these stories on the ghost tours, but says he tries to stay impartial. “I never express my opinions on why I think things are happening. You can’t be sensational. It’s about telling a story and letting people make up their mind. I get a whole range of reactions, but people are generally enthralled and excited to detect a presence.”

When asked if he’s experienced any of these presences himself, Rodney says he hasn’t seen any ghosts personally, however other staff have spotted a woman on the second floor wearing a long blue dress.

“They saw her walking along the corridor,” he says. “Someone once talked to her, and she said her name was Mary – as in Mary Bligh, daughter of the forth Governor, William Bligh. They asked her how she died, and she put her hands over her chest. When they asked her why she hadn’t passed over, she said she was looking after the house.”

Old Government House also runs kid-friendly ghost tours for 9 to15 year olds and their families. Rodney says that on one of these tours, two 12-year-old boys  were having their photo taken on the stairs and heard a cranky woman whispering in their ears, ‘get off the stairs.’

Cranky ghosts aside, is there anywhere in the house that even Rodney won’t go? “I feel very comfortable in Old Government House, but I don’t like going up the second staircase that goes up to the former dormitory.” You’ve been warned.

The Saumarez Ghost: real or not?

Many visitors to Saumarez Homestead ask ‘is it haunted?’. Sally-Anne Prado, Visitor Experience Manager at Saumarez Homestead says it’s usually a place of calm serenity, “but it has given me some curious moments, jumps, and downright heebie-jeebies when the upstairs occupant of Saumarez Homestead has made its presence felt.”

Sally describes being touched on the back of the neck several times, and has even felt a hand between her shoulder blades while she was up a ladder hanging framed works, indicating what she felt to mean: ‘don’t worry, I’ve got you’.

“It likes to sit on beds, leaving its imprint behind and occasionally plays a few keys of the piano, but only when the lid is left open,” explains Sally. “Recently, while arranging the mantelpiece in Elsie’s room, I asked aloud, “so what do you think Elsie, do you like it that way?” when my mobile phone and set of keys that I’d placed carefully in the middle of the bed suddenly went flying across the room, landing on the floor. I’m not sure if that was a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, and I left the room with a shaky volunteer who had witnessed the whole thing and hasn’t stopped talking about it since. Do we have a ghost? You decide, but it’s certainly rather spooky at times at Saumarez Homestead.”

The ghost is purported to be Elsie White (1884-1981), who spent almost all of her 97 years at Saumarez Homestead in Armidale. Her legacy has been thoroughly documented at the Homestead, which is visited by thousands of people each year.

“Elsie preferred to be outdoors, helping with the mustering, and even sleeping outside on the verandah,” explains Sally. “After the death of her father, Elsie assumed many of his responsibilities on the property. She sounds like a strong, amazing woman whom I would like to have met.”

Only women and children have ever reported feeling a ghostly presence in the 30-room Edwardian mansion, and Sally says she’s never felt afraid of the rare odd occurrence. “It’s the nature of grand old houses to have folklore and legend wrapped up in them and people just love to hear these stories. Such stories also encourage us centuries later to delve into the past with curiosity to know who the real person was behind the story.”

Magic and mummies 

While ghosts typically haunt the inside of houses, what happens when you make a spooky discovery under a house? This happened when an archeology student delivered a series of dusty boxes to the National Trust archives, saying the boxes were from a dig under Saumarez Homestead.

Imagining treasures and trinkets, the National Trust team opened the boxes and were surprised to find carefully labelled items, buttons, glass marbles and the skeletal remains of a dead cat.

Dead cats are not a completely uncommon find, buried under old houses. The National Trust Archives has a winning submission from the 2005 Heritage Awards by Ian Evans ‘Ritual Magic and Witchcraft in Old Australian Buildings.’ In it, Evans reflects on the arcane ritual magic that followed convicts and free settlers into Australia from Scotland, Ireland and Wales from 1788 to 1930.

Evans writes ‘these objects are not gorgeous talismans in precious metals or gems – but strange relics of British folk magic that stretches back through history: shoes, the preserved bodies of cats and a range of domestic artefacts.’

Evans suggests that cats, through their association with magic (having nine lives, being a witch’s familiar) made them suitable to be buried under the floorboards to protect the house in the future.

Mummified bodies of cats have been found under the floorboards in Her Majesty’s Theatre in Ballarat and Glengallan near Warwick in Queensland. A single shoe, buried or placed in the ceiling, candlesmoke stains and witch bottles are other evidence of ritual magic found in Australian houses.

Judging by the items found underneath Saumarez Homestead, the tradition was powerful enough to lead locals to guard against evil spirits.

Have these spooky stories inspired you to visits one of our historic National Trust houses? Plan your visit.