Dare to step foot in one of the most notorious asylum's ever to exist in Australia..
The day had been beautiful, a great chance for you and your best friend to explore the Alexandra Gardens and grab some delicious food. Though it was only the second day of your vacation in Ararat, Australia, your friend had suggested you do something exciting and go on a ghost tour. She had gone on about the Aradale Mental Hospital, insisting it looked like something you just had to do. You weren’t surprised, given that your friend loved anything having to do with ghosts or the supernatural. Reluctantly, you had given in. You figured you two could do more of things you wanted to do tomorrow.
Now that you were actually at the hospital, you figured it wasn’t as bad as you had made it to be in your head.
“Here is the J-Ward,” announces your tour guide, herding around your group of 15 curious visitors. You watch two children occasionally scare each other with whispered “Boos!” and taps on the shoulder. If these kids could play around, there was nothing for you to be worried about.
“This ward is considered to be one of the most haunted places on the site,” continues the guide, pausing to point out some things to the group. You were paying attention at first, but then something caught your eye. It looked like a glint of light in the darkness, beckoning you over. Unable to stop yourself, you break off silently from the group and move towards the light. You find yourself stepping into an empty, dark room, the light now gone. Still in a trance, you stand stock still in the dark room, unsure of what pulled you here in the first place.
“GET OUT OF MY ROOM!” screams a high pitched voice, filling the room with the shout. It startles you out your trance and you run out of the room and back to the tour group. Your friend looks at you with a questioning look on her face.
“Where did you go?” she whispers so as to not talk over the tour guide.
“You didn’t hear that scream?” you ask breathlessly, looking quickly back towards the room. Your roommate simply shakes her head.
“There was no scream…” she trails off, her eyes narrowing. As you glance around at the rest of the group, it seems like none of them heard the scream either. You take a deep breath to steady yourself. Maybe it had all been in your head…
Construction began on the Aradale Mental Hospital, originally known as the Ararat Lunatic Asylum, in 1864 and its doors opened in 186. The hospital is in Ararat, Australia which is a rural city in south-west Victoria Australia. It was designed by G.W. Vivian and his assistant John James Clark during the time when Britain still controlled Australia as a colony. The asylum was built to house people who were, at the time, considered criminally insane or irreparably evil. However, over time, the asylum also came to house individuals who suffered from mental illness, post-natal depression and other conditions including epilepsy, autism and down syndrome.
The Asylum was built as a town within a town, housing its own market gardens, orchard, vineyards, piggery and other stock yards. At any one time it was known to hold up to 1000 patients and 500 staff. In the years that the asylum remained open from 1865 to 1991, the building saw 13,000 deaths with an average of 100 deaths per year. Even after its closure as a mental hospital in 1991, the building still housed female prisoners until its current owners took over in 2001.
Before the construction of the Asylum, part of the land housed the county jail. In 1859 three prisoners accused of murder were hung and buried in the exercise area of the jail. Because they were convicted of murder, they were not given a proper Christian burial and the only evidence of their existence are three small marks scratched into the prison wall. Once the Asylum was built, this area became the infamous J-Ward. These three prisoners, along with other infamous spirits, are said to haunt the ward.
One of the most infamous and prominent patients of the Ward was Bill Wallace. Wallace was a suspected murderer who was accused of shooting a friend over an argument about a cigarette. In 1925 two separate doctors declared him insane and he was sent to Aradale for 64 years where he died in 1989 at the age of 107.
Another famous patient that is said to haunt J-Ward is Gary Webb. Webb was said to have mutilated his body over 70 times and is known for shouting at people to get out of his room.
In addition to spirits who haunt the ward, it appears that rooms themselves provoke feelings of nausea, terror, fainting and trance like states.
If you get a chance to explore the asylum, make sure you visit the J-Ward to experience the scares. And if are interested in a little bit more excitement, take a walk outside of the Superintendent’s office. You just might experience a bitter taste in your mouth courtesy of a Dr. William L. Mullen who died by suicide poisoning in 1912.
Today, Aradale Mental Hospital functions as the campus of Melbourne Polytechnic. Though the name might have changed, the ghosts still wander the halls, forever stuck in the asylum.
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