Event information
The Diamond City is known for its stories of ghost sightings, and paranormal experts have verified that there are 158 haunted houses and buildings that have resident ghosts: with well over 200 still to be confirmed.
As such, there are several ghost tours available. These include a walking tour of the city centre, as well as a visit to the Magersfontein battlefield at night: where perhaps one might see the swinging lanterns of stretcher bearers, or hear the echoes of bagpipes. Several battlefield graveyards are visited on this outing.
A ghost trail usually starts at the Honoured Dead Memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker for British soldiers killed during the Siege of Kimberley between 1899 and 1900 during the Anglo Boer War. In the Africana library, the restless spirit of the first librarian roams. He drank arsenic after he was found doctoring the accounts. Here, many visitors have seen books inexplicably crash to the floor.
Then at Rudd House, a woman in white appears on the balcony. This is a former sick room haunted by Percy Rudd the first owner; and the servants’ quarters have at least six ghosts in the courtyard.
A tour also entails a visit to the old Kimberley Club, where a ghostly waiter serves in the dining room, and a woman in period dress stands on the staircase. In the old De Beers boardroom, an unknown ghost drifts by as lights swing mysteriously, and a ghost dog emits an ethereal howl on the porch.
At the William McGregor museum, once a nunnery, a phantom nun wanders; while at the Terry Hall of Militia a baby’s wail can be heard as the lid of a tin trunk mysteriously opens and closes.
