Aradale Asylum

When you think of stereotypical haunted places, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

I'll start first (though it's not like anyone is actually co-writing this blog with me)- houses, health institutions, schools, graveyards. That kind of stuff.

I will say, though, that forests are exceptionally creepy. But that's just me.

It's always the really big and spacious places that are haunted too. Like, do ghosts need a certain minimum of square feet to spawn? Like, I'm assuming ghosts aren't like the Sims, but it's very much giving "you can't place this object because something else is in the way." Like a ghost will be like "oh darn, there's a desk in this room...Bye."

But seriously, it's always the big and inherently ominous places. And maybe that's the mass hysteria of society. It could also be, though, that the big and inherently ominous places are...well, ominous. Like, hospitals don't exactly spark joy. No offense, but new school haircuts and lobotomies don't exactly go hand in hand.

Speaking of lobotomies, for a bit of background. Lobotomies were ridiculously common in the early 40s, but after a decade or so, people were like "maybe, perchance, this is not an ethical procedure..." Lobotomies are, for the grossly uneducated (and my own amusement), neurosurgical procedures that were mostly used to treat psychiatric disorders via the removal of the prefrontal cortex. The connections between the lobes and cortex were severed using fun little tools like ice picks and drills. I won't go into exactly how they would do lobotomies, because that's already scary enough on its own. Nowadays, though, it's mostly used for epilepsy. Still, some diseased brain was like "maybe borderline destroying the brain will cure mental illness...."

But mental illness is a huge focus on today's post. Also Australia. But one of these is more relevant (Not Australia).

The Aradale Asylum of Ararat (of Victoria [of Australia]), first opened in 1867 as an asylum for the psychiatric and intellectually handicapped. The place ran for around 130 years, before it was shut down in the 1990s.

One of the biggest reasons Aradale (alongside it's 'sister' asylums Kew and Beechworth), was to accommodate a "growing population of lunatics" within the colony of Victoria. It held, at its peak, up to 1000 patients, and there were about 70 buildings on the campus. Of course, don't let the 'small' number fool you- Over the 130 years the place was open, there were about 100 deaths each year.

So, Aradale was ridiculously archaic. Like many other mental health institutions of the time, the place was an absolute dump. Like, the equivalent of 'the cat peed on the carpet, but we're going to ignore it until someone else sees it.' Only this was a vicious cycle of acknowledgement and ignorance.

Aradale hosted a variety of patients. Now, one thing to know about ye olde mental health institutions- they would literally take anybody. Depressed? Come on in. Epileptic? Make yourself at home? You talking to boys too much? Get over here.

So yeah, for all the people they took, they needed a lot of space. Aradale had approximately 70 buildings, and it's described as "a town within a town." It had a vineyard, orchards, gardens, a market- all that kind of stuff. Frankly, it feels like an all-inclusive resort. If you exclude the torture, I mean.

"After a relaxing electric-shock therapy session with our clinicians, clients can enjoy a relaxing soak in one of our three swimming pools."

Uh-huh. Sure.

Aradale was also one of those places you couldn't really escape from, either. It had these weird walls that looked low on the outside, but on the other side it had a ridiculously deep trench that made it near impossible to escape. Despite not being funny or charming, this type of architecture was known as a Ha-ha wall.

It's also located on something known as 'madman's hill,' as if that's not the cherry on top.

But wait, it gets worse.

In the late 1880's, Aradale acquired another fine addition to the campus- the J Ward. Originally a goldfield's prison in 1859, J Ward was meant to house the criminally insane. J Ward was considered temporary, but it sure was there for a long time. Like, 100 years. To their credit, they did try to construct an institution at Sunbury Asylum, but then they were like "what if we house girls there instead, and the guys just chill here." Around 1988, though, the Minister of Health was like "yeah, no- this place is shutting down."

The land where Aradale is is actually still in use, even though all the patients are gone. The Victorian Government gave Melbourne Polytechnic a whole bunch of money and was like "go snazzy that place up a little." Anyways, now it's a lovely vineyard and olive grove.

Just because there's a ton of ghosts doesn't mean they have to live like monsters.

To get an idea of all the paranormal stuff that people experience at Aradale today, it's important to get an idea of what kind of people were held there:

Garry Webb David

Garry Webb was a habitual criminal, and spent much of his life in varying institutions and hospitals. He first began his reign of terror around the age of 11, when he began stealing and threatening people. It took them about two years to diagnose him with a psychopathic personality disorder.

In 1882, when he was about 28 years old, Webb attempted to rob a pizza pace, which quickly went sour. An off duty police officer spotted the robbery, and attempted to intervene. Both himself, and the woman who owned the pizza shop were shot, but fortunately both survived. Webb, in a brilliant display of stupidity, appeared to be trying to draw the police into a shootout. He was promptly wounded in the legs by the police, and arrested when news crews observed him attempting to flee.

Webb was sentenced to fourteen years in the J Ward, and if he'd behaved, his sentence would've nearly been halved. So naturally, that sentence indicates he did anything but. Webb started writing the media and politicians via manuscripts. One notable one was the 'Blueprint for Urban Warfare,' and discussed exactly how Webb would be an absolute menace to society once he got out. These included things like poisoning the public water supply, bombing buildings, habitual assassination, and public utility machines dispensing things like blood and fingers.

Naturally, this freaked people out. Webb tried to argue that it was therapeutic for him to write down his graphic fantasies, but this only succeeded in freaking more people out. This put the government in a great deal of stress, and they ultimately decided to pass the Community Protection Act, which allowed them to hold David in a "preventative detention" if the judge was convinced that Webb was a threat.

Webb was known for another particular little thing, too. Whenever he didn't get what he wanted, he would throw a tantrum in the form of self-mutilation. And according to records, he had about 70 notable tantrums where he would cut off bits and pieces. He cut off 'something' three times, and the final time it was so badly damaged it couldn't be reattached. He ultimately died in 1993, when he swallowed some razor blades and developed a stomach infection.

See, Webb's spirit supposedly haunts the asylum today. Aradale is actually incredibly receptive to tourists and visitors, and people are even allowed to go stand in the cells. As rumor goes, people feel incredibly uncomfortable standing in Webb's cell, and some have even heard a deep voice telling them to 'get out.'

Charles Foussard

Charles Foussard is an extremely interesting case, in that he actually completed the longest sentence ever served. At the age of 21 years old, Foussard (who was already really used to petty theft to get by) murdered an elderly man named William Thomas Ford. He then proceeded to steal Ford's boots and continue on his way back into the Dandenong Ranges. Of course, he was found by police and Aboriginal trackers, via the boots he had stolen.

When interrogated, Foussard was also like "by the way, I also murdered a man named Sultan Allem." He withdrew some parts of his confession later on, but when they dragged him to the murder site he actually had a really good idea of the location.

Shortly after, Foussard was committed to J Ward via the governor's pleasure, which basically meant that they could keep him there as long as they wanted. When he died in 1974, he had served over 70 years, and was one of the longest serving prisoners ever. Of course, his ghost still supposedly haunts the place, so there's that.

And those are just some of the people there, really. So many infamous people were housed in the J Ward, that it would take hours to talk about all of them. For instance, there was Pierre Hammond, one of the most notoriously violent men. There was George Leondieu, who was also renowned for throwing violent tantrums. There was Bill Wallace, who was quite literally the oldest recorded prisoner in the world at the age of 107.

You get the gist, there were quite a few.

So let's talk about their lasting impacts on the ward.

Aradale has been under numerous paranormal investigations, including a notable one where the investigators swear they saw a face lurking in one of the cells.

Regardless, though, a lot of people have shared similar experiences (like the whole thing with Garry Webb). For instance, if you walk by the former superintendent's cell, there's a chance you might taste some sort of bitterness. Reports from Aradale actually share that an old superintendent died by swallowing some bitter chemical- either prussic acid or hydrogen cyanide. Whatever it was, neither are really pleasant options. People think this superintendent might've been named Dr. William L Mullen, and he died in 1912.

Some people have a sort of indicator about what treatments went on in a certain room. For instance, the Women's Ward is haunted by a nurse named Kerry, who was a nurse for...the Women's Ward. But aside from that, some people will experience a sort of tingling sensation in one side of their head when they're in specific rooms. Reports show that these rooms were part of the shock therapy ward.

In the lobotomy room, thankfully you don't get lobotomized, but you do get a pretty gnarly headache.

Of course, there's a bunch of other ghostly stuff that happens here. Some people randomly feel sick or scared, and other people will enter a trance until they leave the building. Some folks are pushed and bitten, hear methodical ticking or banging, and electronic equipment seems to go haywire.

Oh, there's also three murderers that were executed and buried there, and supposedly they haunt the place because they weren't given a proper burial. Funny how that happens, right?

Anyways, you'll hear all the stereotypical haunting stuff; crying, white apparitions, footsteps, moaning, sinister smells, pain. You know, all the fun stuff.

However, a lot of people consider the Governor's Bathroom to be incredibly notorious, to the point even the staff won't enter there. With most public bathrooms, though, that really tracks. But anyways, it's "said to be possessed by a demonic force" and at least one prisoner was supposedly killed and dismembered in the bathtub.

But yeah, Aradale is one of those places you can really enter at your own leisure (as long as you schedule a tour first because we don't condone habitual criminal activity here). Maybe you'll experience your own tingling sensation, or a lobotomy, or something. Who knows?