World's Creepiest Places

by Bob Curran

  By this time the Mughal Empire had been so driven back by the British that the current Emperor, Bahdur Shah Zafar II only ruled a small amount of land around Delhi. Even so, he was taken prisoner by the British—he was captured almost beside Humayan’s tomb—and briefly held in Salimgar where he conspired with a number of the Mutineers. In retaliation, he was beaten and starved, and it is said that his emaciated and bloodied ghost still wanders some of the corridors of the old Fortress, even though he was later moved to Rangoon in Burma and was only there for a brief period. He was really the last of the Mughal rulers of the area and was certainly badly treated by the British during his brief stay. The sense of injustice follows his specter like a pall.

  On July 8th, 1858, a peace treaty was signed between the British at the Mutineers in the town of Gwalior, south of Agra. Although the Rebellion was over, some prisoners were still held in Salimgarh, although the British Army used Lal Quila (Red Fort now in the Old Quarter of Delhi which had been completed in 1648) as their cantonment (headquarters for military forces/police) during most of the Raj. However, it’s said that Salimgarh was used as an intelligence post for housing political prisoners and rebels who spoke out against British rule. There seems little doubt that, like the Mughal Emperors before them, the British used torture deep in some of the rooms of the Fortress in order to obtain their information.

  The Fort remained in British hands until the end of their rule in India in 1945. For the latter part of the time (1940–47), it was a prison that held members of the Indian National Army. This was a Nationalist organization formed during World War II in order to bring an end, by terrorist means, to the British Raj, and to drive the British out of India with the aid of the Japanese. These men considered themselves to be Freedom Fighters, fighting the oppressive British regime, and it is in their memory that Salimgarh enjoys its modern name. Their ghosts are supposed to wail in the cells of the Fortress each night.

  With such a violent and turbulent history, is it any wonder that the Fortress is frequented by ghosts? Many visitors and those working late within the walls claim to have heard and glimpsed things—distant voices, shouts, and even vicious laughter. Usually, however, when an attempt is made to find the source of these sounds, they die away altogether. And if anecdotal accounts are to be believed, many people have experienced what sounded like footsteps, which seemed to follow them, accompanied by a blast of cold air on their backs. Yet, when they turn round, there is no one there. As with other ancient sites, visitors have felt unaccountable catches on their arms or tugs at their sleeves, again with nobody there. The sense of foreboding and anguish is very strong within the walls of Salimgarh according to many people—perhaps the terrible pain of the tortured has actually found its way into the stones of the place.

  A violent history, an imprisoned princess, and torture chambers from both the Mughal and British eras have all contributed to the ominous traditions of Salimgarh. Is it any wonder the place is creepy?

  Spokeveld (Great Karoo, South Africa)

  “And sometimes in the campfire’s burnished glow,

  Flick’ring shadows come and go.”

  —John Anthony, Along the Trail

  It’s easy enough to imagine an old castle or a Gothic mansion as being haunted; such things are the stuff of stories and films—but what about an entire stretch of land? Can a “country” be haunted just as much as any house? Can ghosts throng just as much to open territory as they would to any structure? In South Africa, it seems they can.

  On the edge of the Great Karoo in the Western Cape Province of South Africa lies an area known as Spokeveld (Ghost Field or Ghost Country in the Afrikaner language of the Cape). The Karoo is a hot and arid desert-like expanse that extends for more than 400,000 square miles into the Cape, and is one of the world’s most unique arid zones. The word comes from an indigenous Khoisan word that means “dry thirst country” and refers to a land that is not altogether desert, but at the same time is not too far from it in nature.

  The area around the Karoo was settled by a combination of Afrikaner Dutch, German, and British who built small settlements in the area, many of which have expanded and still survive. Towns of varying sizes such as Beaufort West (named for the 5th Duke of Beaufort, British Governor of the Cape Colony), Klaarst-room, and Gamkasloof (once counted as one of the world’s most isolated settled communities) dot the arid landscape, their names hinting at the varied heritage of the region. Settlers arrived from Europe, venturing in to the seemingly inhospitable interior of the Cape and bringing their own ways and beliefs with them. Prior to the building of the first road through the region by Adam de Schmit between 1856 and 1858, they arrived in trains of covered wagons, very much like the early settlers of the American West. And like the American pioneers, they suffered great hardship and loss in the wastes of the Cape desert country—wagon trains were wiped out by disease, some suffered starvation, others simply disappeared. It was around these early explorations that many of the legends of the Karoo are based.

  The area along the edges of the Great and Little Karoo have always been haunted, particularly the region that lies between the Patates River and the South-kloff. The Khoisan tribes of the area (the Khoisan comprise two ethnic groupings which are distinct from the Bantu people) claim that it is a place where the spirits of dead ancestors go to rest and hunt. The lights and smokes of their ghostly fires can be seen, it is claimed, for many miles around, and their eerie hunting cries can be heard in the darkness of the Cape night. And from time to time, groups of ghostly figures can be seen at a distance, walking through the scrub like hunters, only to melt away into the sunlight as soon as they are glimpsed. In fact, it may have been the Khoisan themselves who first referred to the area as a ghost country or ghost land.

  This idea was quickly seized on by the settlers who arrived in the region. Many of them had their own ideas about ghosts that might not have been all that far removed from the Khosian notions, and soon these mingled with the native lore to characterize the area. The eerie cries in the dark, once attributed to ghostly hunting parties, now became the shouts of lost Afrikaner wagon trains seeking help in the wilderness. The mysterious and distant figures often glimpsed at twilight were not African ancestor spirits, but those of wandering settlers, lost amongst the scrub. Not only this, but ghostly settlements came and went, perhaps reflecting the tiny immigrant transitory villages that came and went in the harsh conditions. Small clusters of wooden houses and lone cabins have often been seen along the edges of the Great Karoo only to vanish as soon as someone approaches them. One of the most common stories is that of a small wooden one-roomed cabin that seems to regularly appear along the roadside several kilometers east of Beaufort-West. It has an old man sitting on its porch, sometimes smoking a long-stemmed German pipe of antique design, sometimes reading a newspaper and with a dog sleeping at his feet. If anyone approaches the house, it ripples and disappears like a reflection in a pool when the water is disturbed. The cabin also appears at night with a light burning in its single window as if to lure the visitor in. Some people say that those who enter are never seen again. There is no real tale for the origin of the cabin or of the old man, although some old tales say that there was indeed some form of dwelling there at one time, but that a family lived in it. A terrible fever wiped them all out as it passed through the area, but their ghostly cabin will appear from time to time, and whomever tried to enter it will contract the same fatal fever that killed them. From time to time, a small settlement of lean-to houses will appear in the scrub country. Such small places resemble the temporary shanty towns that were set up in the early 1800s by the Afrikaners who passed through the region. Indeed, travelers have seen women moving between the shanty houses, dressed in what might be referred to as “old fashioned clothing,” the long skirts and dresses of former years. Like the lone cabins in the scrub, these too ripple and vanish like water if approached.

  And there are individual ghosts that haunt the area, too. One of the most fam
ous in the Karoo and in Beaufort-West is that of Elize Meiring, the Maid of Hex River. Her ghost is seen wandering in her nightgown, all the way along the River, between Beaufort-West and the splendidly named Hex (Witch) Mountains. This sprang from an old tale among the settlers that was widely told around the campfires and that may have had a European origin. Elize was known locally as the “heks” (heks is an Afrikaner name for a witch or person of disreputable background) of the Hex River. Elize lived with her parents who were honest farming people—the location of their homestead shifts with each telling of the tale—but she was very spoiled. She was also extremely beautiful, but didn’t have the personality to match her looks. Even so, young men often came to pay court to her and, knowing how good-looking she was, she often set them near impossible tasks to prove how much they wanted her company. Her favorite “task” was to send a young man into the high Hex Mountains in order to bring back a rare red disa—a type of flower—that grew there. Only then would she consent to walk out with him. Many tried, but were turned back by the climb or by the terrible conditions on the upper slopes. One young man, however, did make it to the valley and picked a disa, but on the return journey, he missed his footing and fell to his death, still clutching the rare and precious flower. The tragic incident mentally unhinged Elize when it was relayed to her, and her parents were forced to lock her in her room to prevent her from doing herself any harm. One night, however, she managed to break out of the house and, still wearing her nightdress, fled either to the place where the young man had fallen or to the Hex River itself (depending on which version of the story is recounted). There she threw herself to her doom. Her anguished ghost, still clad in her nightgown, wanders the wilderness around the Hex River and the Great Karoo, laughing insanely and clutching a small red flower in her right hand, which she shows to anyone that she encounters.

  In the seemingly endless scrub, there are frequent stories of ghostly camps out in the bush. Occasionally, strange and distant lights are seen, late at night, far out in uninhabited areas of the Karoo where no lights should be. These seem to signal the fires and lanterns of isolated camps, which seem to come and go in a mysterious way. A common tale in many parts of the Spokeveld is of a lone traveler stumbling into a small camp late at night where a fire is burning and a number of old men, dressed in the clothing of former years, are making a meal. The traveler is given some of their food, which is remarkably tasteless (among some of the African tribes, the food of ghosts is always bland and tasteless) before lying down to sleep. When he or she awakes, the camp is gone without trace and there is no sign of the fire, which was burning brightly the night before. In some cases, the old men around the fire have white and expressionless faces and disappear as soon as their fire is approached. The fire also vanishes without trace.

  But many of the main stories concerning the region relate to the wagons in which the early settlers traversed the waste. Drivers along the Mieringspoort claim to have frequently seen distant wagons traveling across the uneven ground, even in daylight, only to vanish like smoke in the rays of the sun. Some have even encountered them.

  Around the 1920s, a man named Major Ellis (an English settler) recounted in a journal what must be one of the most widely told tales of the region. He recounts it as a personal experience that happened many years earlier. Both he and an Afrikaner driver, Anthony de Beer, were traveling in an open wagon from Ceres to Beaufort-West late one evening. On a particularly uneven stretch of ground, the wheel came off their wagon and they stopped to fix it. As they worked, the light began to fail, and suddenly, away in the distance, both men heard the sound of another wagon approaching extremely fast. At first, Ellis thought that it was some sort of vehicle being driven recklessly along the road and that it would smash into them, but upon listening, de Beer said that he didn’t think the sound came from the road at all. The wagon suddenly appeared, going at a fearful speed with the driver hunched forward over his horses. Ellis caught a glimpse of his face as the wagon shot past—it was skull-like and deadly white, with hard and glittering eyes, the lower portion covered in what looked like some sort of dirty bandana holding the jaws together. Looking up, de Beer shouted “Where the Devil are you going at such a speed?” The driver turned his head slightly and answered “To Hell!” Then with a peal of demonic laughter, the wagon passed and disappeared into the distance. A great waft of cold air chilled the men by the roadside. Ellis didn’t know what to make of the whole incident, but Anthony de Beer was greatly depressed. He remembered an old Afrikaner legend about a phantom wagon, driven by the dead—those who saw it were doomed to die. However, if it was more than one who witnessed the phantom and one spoke to it (as de Beer had done), then the death fell upon the individual who spoke. By crying out to the specter, de Beer had doomed himself. One week later, Anthony de Beer’s body was found, together with a crashed wagon at the bottom of a cliff. He appeared to have driven off the edge, even though he was an experienced wagoneer.

  But it is not only minor demons and pioneer ghosts that haunt the edges of the Spokeveld. The region boasts some more modern phantoms, too. For instance, a young girl killed when falling from the back of a motorbike in the late 1960s is said to haunt the roads near Unionville. She solicits a lift, and as she gets into the vehicle the driver is always struck by the smell of apple blossom. However as the vehicle moves off, she fades away, although the smell lingers for a while. More recently a phantom, white-colored car has haunted the Port Elizabeth Highway between the Hex Mountains and the Drakensberg, driven wildly and apparently accounting for some of the accidents out there.

  So, can an entire region be haunted? Can a whole area draw the spirits of the past to it from the realms beyond? As the light dims and the African night falls over the Spokeveld, you’d be inclined to think so!

  Studley Park (New South Wales, Australia)

  “Lower still lay the Manor House—red brick with grey

  litchened mullions, a house in a thousand, Elizabethan—and

  from its twisted, beautiful chimneys, no smoke rose.”

  —Edith Nesbit, The Haunted Inheritance

  Standing near the outskirts of Sydney, the weathered façade of Studley Park suggests a haunted house. Although it is the centerpiece for Camden Golf Club, it still has the reputation of being one of Australia’s most haunted houses. The building certainly has a colorful and turbulent history, and one that leaves it open to the influences of the supernatural.

  The house was built in 1889 by William Payne, who had bought land in an area called Narellan in southwest Sydney. He called his new property Studley Park, after another property of the same name which was believed to be near Ripon, Yorkshire, England. The house was also meant to impress his new wife, Claire Adams, who he had married in 1886. It was also meant to include four workers’ cottages that would be built on the property and were designed to give it “a period feel.” The house was designed by Francis Buckle, a prominent architect in Sydney, according to Payne’s instructions and work began on the house by the builders A. L. & G. McCredie, early in 1889. Local people laughed at Payne, marvelling at the isolation and the expense of such a mansion, christening it “Payne’s Folly.” Although Payne paid no attention to their jibes, the house was to prove his undoing. Land had to be drained, timber of a specific kind had to be brought in, certain tiling and fittings had to be brought overland (and sometime overseas), and although this certainly was done, the expense of the place mounted. Soon it became too much for William Payne’s wallet, and although the house was up and was a fine Victorian-looking mansion, he was almost bankrupt and still owed money. His principal creditor was Francis Buckle, the architect who had designed the place, and who was now threatening to take him to court. Payne was broken and had really no option but to sell Studley Park. However, there were no buyers, and under Australian law, Buckle was entitled to seize the property against payment of debt. This he did, leaving Payne shattered and destitute. Buckle used Studley Park as a weekend retreat for a time, but he
was never happy there. Something mournful hung over the house—perhaps it had some sort of remembrance of its original owner, William Payne. It would not allow Buckle to settle, and in the end, he sold it on to a Dr. Henry Oliver in 1902. Oliver was the headmaster of the Camden Grammar School, which was located in St. Helen’s Park House in nearby Campbelltown. His school had been expanding, and Oliver was seeking new premises that could serve as a new location for his seat of learning. Studley Park seemed to be just what he was looking for. Around the beginning of 1903, the new Camden Grammar School opened as a boarding school and continued to grow and develop throughout the subsequent years. However, local legend says that it remained a mournful place with a history of minor accidents and illnesses among staff and students there—perhaps a little more than similar institutions of the day.

  The first real tragedy occurred on October 15th, 1909. A 14-year-old boarder named Ray Blackstone and five of his classmates decided to go swimming in a dam close to the school. It was a warm day (during winter in Australia temperatures are around 50 to 60 degrees F) and despite being warned about the dangers of swimming in the dam, the boys went anyway. Ray, who was a strong swimmer, tried to swim from one side of the dam to the other, but halfway over, ran into difficulties. In spite of the efforts of one of the other boys, Sydney Langford, he went under and drowned. His body was brought ashore by some of the senior boys and was reputedly laid out in the dark cellar of Studley Park to await transport home for burial.

  Following the drowning, there were rumors of strange sounds and noises throughout the house, lights were allegedly inexplicably switched on and off, and wet footprints were found in some of the corridors. Ray Blackstone’s figure was sometimes seen both inside and on the grounds of the house, disappearing as soon as anyone approached it. Furthermore, all the clocks in the house mysteriously moved to different times, often throwing the school day into confusion. The atmosphere of the old house became more oppressive. A number of the more sensitive students seemed less than happy there—maybe even frightened.