Ghost Stories from Port Arthur

Church

Three guys were at the back of the group and taking the piss a bit. When listening to the tour guide talking about the church they were stood near a stairway leading up the church tower. They heard footsteps up there and thought it was a setup. When the group moved off they hung back and ran up the stairs. When they reached the top there was no-one there. Thinking the culprit had got past them they walked back down the stairs. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, once again they heard the footsteps only this time they were descending the stairs. The guys watched as these footsteps appeared to get all the way down to the foot of the stairs only there was no-one there. Suffice to say they caught up with the rest of the group VERY fast.

The Pastor's Cottage

Three stories here.

The first takes place during the daytime when a mother and young child were exploring the site. They came to the Pastor's cottage and as they began to walk up the path, the little girl pulled on her mum's arm and said she didn't want to go in. Thinking the child was just tired after a long day walking round the mother replied that this would be the last cottage she would go into. The little girl repeated her refusal to go in explaining that she didn't like the nasty man standing in the window looking at them. The mother couldn't see anything at all and seeing the obvious fear in her daughter's face, she sought out an attendant. The desciption of the man given by the little girl exactly matched up with one of the pastors who was known to have died in the cottage of Pneumonia.

The second story takes place on a ghost tour and occured as a party was attempting to leave the cottage. Most of the group had left except for the rear lamp bearer, the tour guide and two girls. As they were leaving they heard a loud bang from upstairs. Thinking that it was a practical joke, the tour guide turned to the remaining group members but could see they were all very scared. One of the girls, however, said "It's just Steve". Thinking that it was a friend of theirs the tour guide went upstairs to find the culprit but the place was empty. When she got back down she told the girl that there wasn't anyone there. The girl again said "It's just Steve". At this point the tour guide realised that she wasn't understanding the girl's accent and she was actually saying "Let's just leave".
The final, and spookiest story took place again on a ghost tour, but this time when the tour guide was telling them the history of the cottage. A man standing just in front of the tour guide suddenly clutched at his throat. The tour guide asked him if he was ok and he simply nodded his head. As the group came to leave the cottage, the man hung back and asked the tour guide to shine the torch at his throat. There across his throat were four scratch marks slowly turning purple. They left fairly quickly.

The Chief Surgeon's Cottage

The chief surgeon had a disecting room in the cellar of his cottage where he could examine dead bodies for medical science reasons. Various acts of parliament had meant that any unclaimed body (within 48 hours) could be donated to medical science for research purposes and in Port Arthur it was very unlikely that anyone would claim bodies. Indeed they usually didn't even wait the 48 hours.

The room itself is small with a stone table in the centre. The table is split into three to allow the blood to drain down the cracks and onto the floor where it was soaked up in sawdust and ashes. When a ghost tour is in this room everyone is arranged around this table. On one such ghost tour, the tour guide was discussing the history and stories when she noticed a thick-set man at the other end of the table rubbing his arms. She asked him what was wrong and he explained that he was a butcher and that he had an overwhelming feeling that he had just finished cutting up a carcass and that this arms were covered with blood. He spent the rest of his time in the room with his hands firmly clenched together resisting the urge to rub his arms.

The next day, the butcher and his wife came back to the site looking very pale and asked to speak to someone. He explained that when he had got back to his room that night he could still 'feel' the blood on his arms so he went to wash them even though there was nothing there. As he washed his hands the water went bright red. He also commented that it wasn't just water discolouration but it was coming off in clots.

The Silent Prison

The Silent Prison was built based on the famous Pentonville 'spoke' desigin in London and has long corridors with a centre. It was here that the repeat offenders were sent. As the name suggests, no-one was allowed to talk in this prison and they even put reeds down on the floor and made the guards wear velvet slippers so there were no footsteps. The guards even communicated in whispers.

There are two stories from the prison, with the first occuring during the day. There was a chapel in the prison for prisoners to contemplate their sins. In order to maintain the 'ethos' of the prison - i.e. no communication - the prisoners were made to stand in separate boxes with locked doors between them and the next box. It was also tiered so they couldn't see the man in front of them. A lady was exploring this chapel and decided to stand at the pulpit where the pastor would have preached his sermons from - the only person that the prisoners would ever see. She looked up at the array of boxes in front of her and was horrified to see every box full of a convict staring back at her.

The last story from our little ghost tour took place after all the tours had finished. Some poor tour guide has the job of every night going around and ensuring all the doors are locked. One female tour guide didn't believe in ghosts and had never experienced anything on any of her tours so often volunteered for this job. Her method of locking up the silent prison was to enter down the lunatic wing and lock the two inner doors before going back up the lunatic wing and locking the final door - a grille gate. She had just finished locking the first door when she heard footsteps coming from another wing. She shone her torch down the wing thinking it was a lost tourist and saw no-one. She called out a few times but got no response. Shrugging it off, she continued down a third wing to lock another door, and on her way back down this wing towards the centre of the prison she again heard the footsteps. She again shone her torch down the wing where the footsteps were coming from and called out, again with no response. Starting to feel a little apprehensive, she started to make her way down the lunatic asylum wing but once again heard the footsteps approaching her. This time when she shone her torch around the footsteps continued towards her but again she couldn't see anything. By this time she was very scared and started to run for the exit. The footsteps behind her broke into a run also and started to gain on her. She made the door way and slammed it shut behind her and slammed the lock shut. She heard the footsteps reach the grille and stop. Shining her light through the grille she could see nothing but the footsteps continued to pace up and down behind the door.

Well I've managed to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end just writing this in daylight. Hope you enjoyed the stories!