Port Elizabeth's ghost tours

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Port Elizabeth's ghost tours are steeped in history.

© Chris Marais

After dark, Port Elizabeth's ghost tours make you want to reach for a flashlight and a direct line to a local ghostbuster. The city, especially in the Central district, gets a little eerie in the light of the silvery moon. That's because of the wonderful gothic architecture of the area, and the knowledge that it's an old city full of wandering spirits.

Haunted places in Port Elizabeth include the public library (where an unhappy policeman wandered for a while), a row of terraced houses where a nun, woman and child have been seen walking through walls, a phantom hitch-hiker up at Target Kloof and a 'murder' house in Walmer.

Pat Hopkins, the author of Ghosts of South Africa, has the Public Library story:

'The building next to where the library was built, burnt down on 6 May, 1896. Police Constable Maxwell was killed when stone coping fell onto him. When construction on the library started, the remembrance stone that was placed on a low wall was removed to the library gardens, upsetting Constable Maxwell who then haunted Room 700 until the decision was made to return the stone...'

The library now has another resident ghost: caretaker Robert Thomas, who died in 1943 after 31 years of faithful service. They say he goes around banging doors and stacking books on the floor, occasionally knocking them over again.

A popular Port Elizabeth ghost tour (for groups of about 30) begins at the News Café in Summerstrand with a background talk, and then heads off to the Seaman's Institute, a series of infamous old hotels, a theatre, a hospital, a famous school and the South End Cemetery.

Even if you don't really believe in ghoulies and spooks and such, the ghost stories of Port Elizabeth will keep you riveted.