An (alleged) Haunting at Carclew House, North Adelaide
The
property on which Carclew House is situated was originally owned by George
Cortis in 1837, who sold it to William Bartley in 1847. It was owned by Edward Stephens in 1848, then by the Crawford family from 1849 until 1855 (with a year of possession by H. Mitchell in
1852).
In 1855, Abraham Scott and Edmund William
Wright owned the property for six years before selling it to James Chambers in 1861.
James Chambers success came from buying
a town acre in the first Adelaide land sale. With his brother John, he imported horses
from Van Diemen’s Land. The two men secured themselves a small fortune through
their business dealings and became philanthropists in the small Adelaide
community. He opened a livery stable in Adelaide and purchased coaches from South Africa
and England. He gained the mail contract to Burra (around 1845) and built a
large business carting people and mail to the mining communities in Kapunda, Burra and other towns in the Mid North
of South Australia. James Chambers also supplied the horses and carts for
Tolmer's gold escort from Mount Alexander to Adelaide in 1852.[1]
Mr Chambers had a small house and stable on
the land in North Adelaide, which he sold to tobacco magnate, Mr
Dixson, in 1896. Dixson demolished the former home of Chambers and commissioned
architect John Bruce to build a stately mansion, which he named Stalheim.
In 1908, Dixson sold his stately home to Langdon Bonython, the wealthy owner of The Advertiser newspaper. Bonython renamed the building Carclew House and lived there with his wife, Lady Marie Bonython, and their children.[2] The Bonython family lived happily in the newly named Carclew House from 1908 until its sale to the state government in 1965.
There are numerous ghost stories associated with Carclew House, many of which are urban legends.
The oldest being that Sir Bonython
carried his disabled wife, whom he had found cheating, up into the spire and
threw her out of a window. Lady Bonython allegedly hit the ground, but did not
die, so Sir Bonython carried her up again and threw her out the window a
second time! (An addition to this story sometimes told is that Sir Bonython
bricked his wife up inside the spire wall. Another telling is that Lady
Bonython caught her husband in the embrace of another woman and threw herself
from the tower.) Whether the story is true has not seemed to
matter in the annals of South Australian history; some people never let the
truth get in the way of a good story, and this is a story that has it all.
From a conspirator's point of view, though, such a tragic murder could easily have been covered up, with her husband’s control of the local newspaper and other media sources, a son in the Mayor’s office, and an abundance of money and power. Sir Bonython could have easily covered up such an event, but as we all know, the truth has a way of exposing itself, and if such an event did occur, it would find its way into the public forum eventually. There is no conclusive evidence to prove that Sir Bonython killed his wife; in fact, her death appears to be a natural one that somehow became a conspiracy against her ever-loving husband. Perhaps the rumours persisted and became an urban legend due to jealousy over the families’ wealth and power?
Other urban legends from Carclew House involve men being buried inside the walls of the house, possibly builders, one near the front door and the other in a wall at the rear of the house. Urban legends have a way of twisting over time, and the story that once involved Lady Bonython looking longingly from a turret window at the outside world has now evolved into that of a young boy haunting the spire and looking out longingly at the city below.
What
is interesting about this is that there is a ghostly tale of a young man at
Carclew House, as told by Lady Wilson, the
granddaughter of the Bonythons. In the story from her youth, Lady Wilson
recalls sleeping in a downstairs bedroom and witnessing the spirit of a young
boy.
The spirit was that of a young man with
blond hair, aged about 15, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and black shorts
with knee-high socks. The spirit would enter the room and go straight to the
dressing table, where he would pick up pins…and while she watched him, he would
very slowly become transparent, until he disappeared. Other reports that have come to me over the
years have included phantom smells of perfume that waft through the art rooms,
one witness to the phantom perfume followed her nose, and although she could
not find a source, she said the smell was strongest in the spire below a trap door.
Carclew House is one of those locations in Adelaide that every budding Ghost Hunter wishes
he or she could have a chance to investigate…
This is an extract from my book The Haunts of Adelaide:
Revised Edition – for the full story, the book is available here: https://www.amazon.com.au/Haunts-Adelaide-History-Mystery-Paranormal/dp/B08JLQLLC5
©2020 Allen Tiller
