The History Trust of South Australia presents South Australia’s History Festival. In its 15th year, the festival is one of the South Australia’s largest community events, and promotes the State’s wonderful collections, places and stories through an amazing range of history-related activities.

Tonight we experienced the Adelaide Arcade Ghost Tour which was hosted by Adelaide Haunted Horizons.

Is Adelaide Arcade really haunted? Well, if a building has been around long enough, someone is bound to pass away inside it at some point. Our tour guides have done the interviews and research, and re-tell the tales of tragedy.

We hear about Francis Cluney, the caretaker of the Arcade who tragically died in 1887 when his long coat was caught in machinery between the generator and the flight wheel. The suspicious death of Sydney Byron in 1902 from gas inhalation. The mother, Bridget Kennedy Byron went to great lengths to get her son back from her estranged husband, only to experience the death of her child. The murder of Florey Horton by her jealous and violent husband. Shot in the back three times, it was a letter that she had given to a close friend that had the husband convicted.

As we tour different sections of the Arcade we re-count many of the experiences told by both staff and visitors; dark shadowy figures, unknown footsteps, children playing and running, doors slamming, people being touched, little children appearing and vanishing, and full bodied sightings of a gentleman in a long coat.

We end the tour in the tea room, a run down basement that can only be lit by torches. The group stands silently in the dark during “lock down” waiting for something supernatural to happen. The darkness and silence is almost overwhelming, but an experience to be had in itself. Some of us leave the tour with relief and excitement, while others have their own ghostly experience.

After the Adelaide Arcade Ghost Tour, the historical building will never be viewed quite the same!

South Australia’s History Festival is on from 27th April to 31st May 2019. Check their website for further details.