Uley Road Cemetery & Chapel
Uleybury was
established in the late 1840s by Moses Bendle Garlick. Garlick had migrated to
Australia from Gloucestershire England in 1837. Garlick was a weaver and Lay-Preacher. Uleybury was chosen as
the area's name because the district's hills reminded Garlick of his
home in Cotswold. 'Uley' was Garlicks home village and 'Bury' was the term used
in that region for a tree-covered hill.
In 1841, Garlick paid
400 pounds to have a small chapel built on an acre of land he had set aside. The
Uleybury Baptist Church was the first Baptist Church in South Australia built
outside of Adelaide and served the local community for many decades.
In the 1970s, the now-abandoned chapel started to attract teenagers in the area looking for a cheap
scare. At that stage, the area had no dwellings nearby and was rather remote,
quiet and spooky. Along with the
teenagers came vandalism, and the chapel and many graves in the cemetery were
badly vandalised, with many disappearing altogether.
On March 10, 1981, the local council stepped in and demolished the old chapel. The stone walls that now
surround the cemetery were built from the stones of the original chapel. A memorial plaque marking the event was placed at the front gate.
The ghost stories of
the area were well entrenched by the 1970s, many of which emerged two decades before in the 1950s.
In 1953, The Bunyip newspaper, in Gawler, printed a story told by Frank Ifould.
Franks tells the story of a man who worked for his father. A man who enjoyed drinking alcohol every day. On the day's Frank's, dad went into town, the worker hit the bottle harder, often getting exceptionally drunk. One evening, another worker decided he would scare the drunk man and dressed in a white sheet. Ha waited patiently for the drunk to appear, and jumped out, scaring the drunk. The drunk, in his stupor, believed it was a real ghost, and told his story to whoever would listen.
The story of the ghost
eventually spread, and as it spread the story grew, until it started to include
headless horsemen and ghastly coaches eerily cruising past the cemetery. From
that moment onwards, the crossroads, just a little further up from the cemetery has been known
as “Ghost Corner”.
This proves that the
alleged haunting of Uley Road Chapel and Cemetery is nothing new. There are ghost multiple stories now, but some of them are eerily similar to the
original story. Today there are stories of a girl in a wedding dress who runs
out onto the road screaming, another girl who steps out in front of your car,
dressed in white, she screams as your car hits her and disappears into the
ether.
There are stories of
shadow people, stone-throwing ghosts, and some local legends of satanic rituals
happening in the 1970s – this all adds to the myths and legends of the location - which is still a popular place in South Australia to ghost hunt or
scare people.
I have visited the
cemetery many times, and on a couple of occasions come across some weird behaviours. One of them being giant circles made out of stones in the top left
corner of the cemetery – the photos below were taken in 2010
So is it really haunted or is it fake
ReplyDeleteI can tell you WITH THE UTMOST CERTAINTY that this location IS haunted! I had an experience there back in the 1990's that still has me obsessed with the location. Anyone wanting to hear about my experience is more than ok to ask. I won't post it here because I don't want to write a novel and bore those not interested :)
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