New Zealand is a country on Earth that is sometimes missing on our world maps and is home to the Hobbits. But they are wonderful people with much history to offer. Lucky us, we have our own kiwi, Paula, to talk to us about NZ’s most haunted place!

What Is It About New Zealand?

Growing up in New Zealand, a small country, many things started happening civilisation-wise in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We have a different history than other countries around the world. 

In saying that, though, we have a few exciting spots around New Zealand worth visiting, including the former Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, considered the most haunted place in New Zealand.

What Is The Seacliff Lunatic Asylum?

On the South Island of New Zealand, about thirty kilometres from Dunedin, the ruins of an old asylum called Seacliff. During the 1800s, many people from outside of New Zealand flocked to Otago to join in the Gold Rush in the hopes of getting rich. 

This included my great-great-grandfather Archibald and his wife Mary Clark, who were blacksmiths and considered one of the early settlers in Otago. There is even a picture of them hanging up in the Otago Early Settlers Museum.

As the gold began to dry out in the mid-1800s, it strained the medical industry in Dunedin. In 1874, an architect named Robert Lawson started to build the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum. It was finally constructed in 1884, ten years later. Once built, it was the largest building in New Zealand and could house up to five hundred patients and fifty staff members. 

What Happened In The Seacliff Lunatic Asylum?

In 1889, Frederic Truby King was the superintendent and would go on to found Plunket, a well-known New Zealand society that helps mothers with young babies and parenting up to age five. 

This surprised me as when he worked at the Seacliff, he was an avid promoter of eugenics. He participated in treating patients with inhumane and barbaric experiments, including lobotomies, electroconvulsive therapies, and unsexing, which involved removing genitals, wombs, ovaries, etc. 

Another fact that surprised me was that in 1945, one of New Zealand’s most famous writers, Janet Frame, was admitted to Seacliff and wrongly diagnosed as schizophrenic. She started writing and making a national name, winning writing prizes worldwide. 

It was said that due to her fame, the asylum decided to cancel her scheduled lobotomy to avoid any bad press. Could you imagine if they gave Janet Frame a lobotomy? We would be without one of our most recognized and prolific authors of the nineteenth century. During her stay between 1945 and 1955, it was said that she received more than two hundred treatments of electroconvulsive therapy.

What More Is There To Uncover At The Seacliff Lunatic Asylum?

The haunting part comes from one of New Zealand’s worst tragedies on December 8th, 1942. That night, a terrible fire ravaged the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum and killed thirty-seven female patients. 

The ward was always locked down at night, and the windows shuttered. Due to war staff shortages, the night warden only checked the ward every hour. When the night warden came around to check the ward, the fire had already taken hold and reduced the building to ashes and ruins. 

There were two survivors found in the ward. It is said that the ghosts of the dead females still haunt and wander the grounds, looking for a way out, and you can hear their wailing. 

Seacliff Lunatic Asylum was closed in 1973, and the remaining patients were transferred to a nicer-looking building called Cherry Farm Hospital, which closed thirty years ago in 1992. 

Any Last Words On The Lunatic Asylum?

The grounds of Seacliff were turned into a tourist attraction called the Enchanted Forest, named after one of Janet Frame’s stories, and with the surrounding dense forest, it tried to spark a bit of happiness in the place after the sombre activities.

The Seacliff Lunatic Asylum has come back into the public’s eye. On November 3rd, 2023, a human thigh bone and a patient tag were discovered in what police have called a shallow unmarked grave under a tree and sparked an investigation.

Paula Phillips