• Jan Hall
THE Fremantle Arts Centre is reputedly the most haunted building in WA.
Unexplained sightings, doors opening and closing on their own, strange lights, the feeling of a kiss on the cheek when no-one is about, these are just some of the things reported at the heritage listed building.
Jane Hall first heard the stories working at the now disbanded local history museum that was housed in the former women’s asylum.
“I haven’t seen ghosts but many people told me they had,” she says.
The former Freo local has written a book May They Rest in Peace detailing the grim history of the hauntingly beautiful complex that dates back to the 1861.
It’s not just hearsay but a detailed and well researched history.
“[Documented] by the museum curator,” Ms Hall says.
Stories of a woman in black, seen in various parts of the building, and in the grounds at night holding a lantern, have been told by numerous people.
It’s believed she was the mother of a red-headed young girl who’d been abducted.
Driven mad with grief she was admitted to the asylum, where she eventually threw herself from a window.
A photo of a woman peering from an upper-storey window is said to be the tragic figure’s phantom.
“Speculation is the girl who took the picture managed to get the image because she had red hair,” Ms Hall says.
The solid door of the woman’s cell was bolted to the wall after a school girl was locked in by mates. As the terrified girl begged to be let out a virtual tornado ripped through the room, rattling windows. The girl ran when the door was opened and refused to speak of her experience.
On another occasion a group of young men asked Ms Hall about piano music coming out of a well-lit upstairs room the previous night, as they had walked by.
The place had been locked and supposedly quiet as the grave, Ms Hall says. “A couple of days later a second group said the same thing.”
The book is not all about ghouls, with an easy-to-read recounting of the complex from its beginnings to the close of the asylum and the fight to save it from the demolish ball in the 1970s.
It’s a story with heroes and villains, and one that proves, if ever there was doubt, that mental health has never been a high priority with any government.
Politician and newspaper editor Frederick Vosper once called for a Royal Commission into the inhumane conditions and treatment of women at the asylum.
The slim volume is available the Fremantle Arts Centre book shop, Dymocks as well as the Perth Museum and State Library for just $16.50.
by JENNY D’ANGER
