What happened
The Beechworth Lunatic Asylum opened on 24 October 1867, after the town's council lobbied for better conditions for the mentally ill, who until then had been held in the local gaol. The hospital on Mayday Hills grew to 67 buildings and at its peak housed more than 1,200 patients; it was one of the three largest such hospitals in Victoria. It changed names several times and closed, as Mayday Hills Psychiatric Hospital, in the mid-1990s. Among eleven hectares of heritage gardens there is now a hotel and Asylum Ghost Tours, which runs history tours, night-time ghost walks and ‘paranormal investigations’. The stories told most often are of a woman who fell from a third-storey window and of a figure called Matron Sharpe, who is said to still do her rounds of the wards. Visitors speak of footsteps, cold spots and the feeling of being watched.
Witnesses
Guides and visitors on Asylum Ghost Tours, guests of the hotel on the former hospital grounds.
Explanations and hypotheses
The hospital's history is well documented in Victoria's public records; the ghost stories have no independent confirmation. An essayist in Overland observes that the night tours use the asylum's past to talk about how badly mental illness was understood and how easily the system could be abused – behind the ghost stories lie the real, often sad lives of patients. Sources disagree on the year of closure (1995 or 1996).
Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.
Sources
- Overland – The past is a ghost story (2018)
- Victorian Collections – Mayday Hills Hospital: historical information
- RACV RoyalAuto – Explore haunted places in Victoria
More: Wikipedia (en)