Haunting Yarralumla: The ghost and the Governor-General

Most Canberrans who flock to Yarralumla’s much anticipated annual open days for a voyeuristic insight into the life of our monarch’s representative in Australia do so completely unaware of its mysterious past, one that is steeped in myth and legend.

Apart from the imposing façade of the three-storey residence, first built in 1891 (with several additions and alterations bewteen 1899 and the 1940s), after reaching the end of the grand driveway, one of the first things you notice is a mature tree near the turning circle.

The tree, a Cedrus deodara, commonly-known as a Himalayan Cedar, pre-dates the arrival of the first GG to bunk down here (John Lawrence, Baron Stonehaven in 1927) and soars over the ceremonial entrance. However, it’s what may lie buried beneath the towering tree that has captivated story-tellers for well over a century.

According to a letter reprinted in the Sydney Sun on December 21, 1925, a large diamond was once buried here.
In Gables, Ghosts and Governors-General: The Historic House at Yarralumla (Allen & Unwin Australia 1998), renowned historian Chris Coulthard-Clark summarises the content of the curious letter.

“Allegedly stolen by a convict, the diamond was concealed in a secret hiding place until 1842 when the convict revealed its whereabouts to a groom who left the information to his son. After retrieving the jewel, the groom’s son set out from Sydney to Queanbeyan in the company of a "trusty blackfellow". On being accosted by bushrangers, the Aborigine swallowed the jewel, whereupon bushrangers shot him and buried him in a piece of land”.

According to the letter, that piece of land is now part of, you guessed it … Yarralumla.

“I believe the diamond to be among his bones…” wrote the anonymous author of the unsigned letter allegedly written "near Yarralumla" in 1881, adding that the grave is “under the large deodar tree”.

While even the most fanciful folklorist must confess that the story is far-fetched at best, several spooky encounters have been linked to the boy and the diamond, with some suggesting that his ghost haunts the grounds of Yarralumla, manifesting itself in the form of a young man furiously digging at the roots of the deodar (presumably in search of the prized jewel).

The most remarkable of these is a documented sighting by no less than Sir Murray Tyrrell, who was official secretary to a string of governors-general between 1947 and 1973. The Canberra News of August 27, 1970, reported the details of Tyrrell’s eerie encounter of February 1963 in which he claims to have encountered the ghost, a dark shadow creeping up the stairs.

Again, Coulthard-Clark best captures the essence of his sighting: “He [Tyrrell] called out to the figure to halt it but it continued up the stairs and disappeared from view around a corner … Sir Murray ran after it but by the time he reached the landing the image had vanished.”

After a search of the rooms revealed no intruder, a flummoxed Tyrrell summonsed a guard and his dog.

“Initially bounding up the stairs, the animal suddenly stopped, then retreated and resisted all commands to go forward again,” reports Coulthard-Clark.

“The terrified dog even bared its teeth at its handler in a display of non-cooperation which the handler assured him was totally uncharacteristic,” reports Coulthard-Clark, who 20 years after the event, confirmed the accuracy of the report with Tyrrell.

With no intruder (of the flesh and blood type, at least) found, paranormal aficionados believe Tyrrell, “who was never able to explain his experience that night”, had a brush with the ghost boy of Yarralumla.

While Tyrrell’s strange sighting is now firmly entrenched in Yarralumla folklore, another historic ghost encounter, until now kept secret amongst an inner circle of former security guards, adds more credence to the property’s haunted reputation.

“It was bizarre, an entity rising out of the water near the jetty,” reports Mick Sutton, 79, who worked as a security guard at Government House in the early 1970s.

Sutton, now of Murrumbateman, recalls his encounter with the “wispy wraith” in detail: “It looked like it had a white gown on, it definitely wasn’t a man, it was a female ghost,” he says, adding he “to this day can’t explain” what he saw.

“After it rose out of the water, it then slowly sank back into the lake,” he recalls.

While Sutton shared his tale of "the lady of the lake" with two close colleagues working the same shift, until now, worried about ridicule, he hasn’t spoken publicly about it.

“I was a security guard, a member of the Australian Federal Police; police aren’t supposed to see ghosts,” he says.

One of Sutton’s colleagues also on patrol that night was Barry Booth, who now lives in northern NSW. When this column recently tracked down Booth, he was also able to recount details of the night, almost as clearly as Sutton.

“I remember Mick [Sutton] rushing into our sentry station, his eyes bulging and in a shaky voice telling me he’d seen a ghost,” he recalls.

While Booth never had his own ghostly encounter at the GG’s, he is aware of another security guard who encountered a trail of phantom footprints, which he believes may belong to “the same ghost that Tyrrell saw in 1963”.

“He cornered the bloody thing near the gardener’s shed and put his torch on it, but then it disappeared into thin air,” recalls Booth. “The poor fella was shaking for an hour or more.”

Keen to discover if there have been any recent ghostly sightings at Yarralumla, several months ago your Akubra-clad columnist asked our current GG, Sir Peter Cosgrove, through his current official secretary, if he believed his Canberra digs were haunted.

Disappointed, I am yet to receive a response. This could be for one of several reasons - including that the Cosgroves don’t want to fess up that their home is haunted - or, heaven forbid, they have more important tasks at hand.

Canberra isn’t exactly flush with stately residences that predate our city’s 1913 foundation, and whatever your take on things that go bump in the night, the opportunity to explore this iconic property with its exquisite furnishings and landscaped grounds is a highlight in Canberra’s spring calendar.

The 2018 spring open day is this weekend. See you there. I’ll be the one dressed as a gardener with shovel in hand, lurking suspiciously beneath the deodar tree.

Open Day: Venture beyond the gates and discover the house and gardens of Australia’s vice-regal residence on Saturday, October 6 from 10am-2pm. Free entry. Parking available along Dunrossil Drive in Yarralumla, which is named after the only Australian GG to die in office, Lord Dunrossil, who suffered a fatal pulmonary embolism in 1961.

Tim’s Tip: Arrive early to avoid long queues for tours inside the house.

Don’t forget: Be on your best behaviour. At an open day earlier this year, Sir Peter Cosgrove charmed many waiting in the queue by stopping for a handshake and chat.

Look out for: A slight depression in the lawn about 100 metres south of the house. This marks the location of a vault which once housed the bodies of two of the property’s colonial-era inhabitants, Elizabeth Gibbes (c. 1790-1874) and her husband, Colonel John Gibbes (1787-1873). In 1880, at the request of their son, the coffins containing their remains were reinterred at the St John the Baptist Church in Reid, where a pair of patterned stained glass windows on opposite sides at the east end of the Nave also exist in their memory. The vault at Yarralumla was subsequently filled in.

Earlier this week an email from Stuart Curran of New Acton, who had just discovered (via a back-copy of this column) the historic stone wall of Tuggeranong, lobbed into my inbox. “I’d love to know more about the European heritage of Tuggeranong,” he asked.

Curran’s query is a timely one because later this month The Soldier Settlers of Tuggeranong, a remarkable photographic exhibition which delves into the fascinating history of eight men who gained soldier settler blocks on the old Tuggeranong property after returning from active service in the Great War, will open at Lanyon Homestead.

“It’s a part of our history that not one in 1000 Canberrans know about,” claims curator Jenny Horsfield, who “has been lucky to meet many of the descendants of these soldier settlers”, many of whom have shared memories, stories and photo albums with her.

While drought, rabbit plagues, weeds, uncertain markets and living with the legacy of their war service made farming tough for most of the eight granted leases on either side of the Murrumbidgee River near Point Hut Crossing, one of the more successful was Darcy Thompson.

“After returning from the Western Front to marry his sweetheart, Darcy took up land at Pine Island, and battled on through the inter-war years to create a successful grazing enterprise that he passed on to Ian, his son,” reveals Horsfield.

While Ian Thompson, now in his 80s, continues to farm, he does so in the NSW town of Young, as much of his Pine Island property was resumed in the 1970s for the Tuggeranong town centre.

Soldier Settlers of Tuggeranong opens on October 16 at the rustic Lanyon Education Centre, and will be on show until November 11. I expect Curran to be one of the first to check it out.

This column’s recent feature on the double-seater pit toilet at Coolamine Homestead flushed-out reports of other multiple-seat outdoor dunnies.

“I went to a fairly isolated school in country NSW which had a long drop toilet and the girl’s loo actually had three holes”, reports Alison Windsor of Kambah, adding, “they were graduated sizes so that the littlies could use the smaller holes and the bigger kids and female adults who were brave enough to go into the thing could use the large ones.”

Just because there were three holes didn’t mean Windsor had two companions each time she answered a call of nature. “Only friends, or someone you felt sorry for (like kindergarten kids new to the school) would be permitted to attend the loo with you,” reports Windsor.

Meanwhile, Michael Dwyer of Melba, who “grew up on a farm with a two-holer pit toilet, also with one hole smaller than the other”, called his outdoor loo the ‘dub’ and wonders if any other bush families used this nickname.

Contact Tim: Email: timtheyowieman@bigpond.com or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick. You can see a selection of past columns online.

Clue: Adventurous campers in Namadgi may have stumbled upon this contraption.

Degree of difficulty: Hard

Congratulations to Veronica O’Brien of Gowrie who was the first reader to correctly identify last week’s photo, sent in by Martin Kenseley of Rivett, as the gardens of the former Sherwood Homestead site near Uriarra on the ACT's north-west border.

“I’ve lived in Canberra for over 30 years and went out there for the first time just a couple of weeks ago,” reports O’Brien, adding, “the daffodil display was absolutely stunning!”

O’Brien beat a number of readers to the prize, including Rosemary Parker of Fisher, Gillian Mitchell of Kaleen and Karen Leyden of Kambah, who says “it’s a very peaceful place.”

According to oral tradition, the oak trees at Canberra’s Sherwood were planted by British migrants Henry and Eliza Phillips, who established a house on the site in 1863 and planted many seeds collected from England, including from the Sherwood Forest of Robin Hood fame — home to some of the oldest trees in Europe.

Also growing beneath some of the mature elm and towering oak trees at Canberra’s Sherwood are many Rip Van Winkles, a rare variety of daffodil planted 150 years ago by the Phillips.

This site is accessible via several walking tracks (6km-9km return trips), information which can be found on the environment.act.gov.au website.

“I prefer the more scenic route by walking in from Mountain Creek Road - a little longer than the walk from East-West Road and a few hills, but more interesting, with some woodland and less pine forest and blackberries,” reports Ian Loiterton who visits the site several times a year.

How to enter: Email your guess, along with your name and address, to timtheyowieman@bigpond.com. The first email sent after 10am, Saturday, October 6, 2018 will win a double pass to Dendy - The Home of Quality Cinema.