Museum Ghosts, Somerset East

• Somerset East

The Dominee

Over the years, several visitors to the Somerset East Old Parsonage Museum have reported seeing a tall man in a black suit sitting behind the desk in the study. There have been incidents of visitors seeing the light bulb over the desk in the study switching on and off when they enter the room.

Keridwyn Frieslaar, who has worked in the museum for 20 years, has, on a few occasions, heard heavy footsteps slowly descending the staircase when she has been on her own in the building, and busy elsewhere. It is not unusual for people who are alone in the building to hear slow, heavy footsteps in the upstairs rooms.

The Little Boy

People have reported seeing a little boy in Victorian dress standing in a corner, or running, with a very sad expression. There is a grave under the floor of the room where he has been seen, where the infant son of a Pastor is buried.

The Wounded Soldier

Museum staff feel certain that there is still a soldier in the Officer's Mess built during the time of Somerset Farm, today the Walter Battiss Art Museum. Different people have experienced a "male" presence in various rooms of the Museum. It is said that on some nights, one can still hear the English officers throwing their glasses into the fireplace. One man who lived in the building as a small boy said that the "Black Ghost" threw a horseshoe at this mother - making him an unusually substantial ghost! Passers by, on dark nights, have reported seeing a man standing at the upstairs window. Perhaps, if one listened carefully, one could hear the rattle of the spurs of the officers, as they went up and down the old staircase!