Narrenturm & Beechwood Insane Asylums

Ep. 152

Narranturm &

Beechwood Asylums

 

Today we're going back to some of our creepy roots. We're gonna visit a couple Asylums!!! First, we're going to look at Narrenturm asylum, and then we'll head to Beechwood Asylum! After that, we'll just hop right into the business!

 

"Narrenturm" in (Austrian/older) German translates as 'fools' tower,' or more accurately: 'lunatics' tower! 

 

The Narrenturm was indeed the world's first building especially designed, in 1783, for "keeping" such mentally ill "patients" locked up in a central facility. It was finished in 1784, and the first patients were admitted soon after.

 

Treatment in those days was minimal to non-existent, so the 250 or so inmates in the 28 cells branching off each of the circular corridors on each of the five floors were indeed more or less simply "incarcerated" here. It was little more than a "loony bin," then emphasizing the word "bin." Still, it was argued that this was better than letting the patients roam around freely with the risk that they might harm someone or be subjected to ridicule or even physical mistreatment by other people. So they were locked away inside this tower, two patients in each of the cells, which contained nothing but the beds and bare walls.

 

The Narrenturm was constructed in 1784 under Emperor Joseph II. It was Constructed by court architect Isidor Canevale. It consisted of a five-story, fortress-like circular building with 28 rooms and a ring of slit windows, plus a central chamber aligned north-to-south. There were, in total, 139 individual cells for the inmates. It was built as part of the Altes Allgemeines Krankenhaus, or "Old General Hospital." It was officially founded by Emperor Josef II in 1784 after the buildings had been used for more than 60 years as a poorhouse. The building of the Narrenturm was prompted by the discovery of underground dungeons used by the Capuchin monks of Vienna for housing their mentally ill brethren; another factor was that Joseph II had learned about similar institutions in France during his travels there. The construction of the Narrenturm points to a new attitude towards the mentally ill – they began to be separated from the rest of society and not simply classified among the general category of "the poor." Each cell had solid and barred doors and chains for restraining inmates. The building's doctors and guards were officed/housed in the center. A visitor to the Narrenturm in the late 1700s said some patients were still made to wear chains or straitjackets while in their cells. Others were allowed to roam free, although the institution was focused on a new way of dealing with the mentally ill. 

 

The Narrenturm had a lightning rod or "lightning catcher" installed on the roof ridge when it was first built. At that time, Václav Prokop Diviš, a clergyman in Přímětice near Znojmo, had studied plant growth and treatment with electrical currents present, publishing his findings to the medical community. There are rumors the 'caught lightning' may have been used to treat the mentally ill, although that has never been proven.

 

Prokop Divis invented the grounded lightning rod, which is still used in today's modern infrastructures. He was also a natural scientist, theologian, and one of the Czech canon regulars during his time. A man of science from the earlier centuries, Prokop Divis thought ahead of his time and made this classic invention. 

 

Although definitely a man who believed in God and serving the church, Prokop still made his own contribution as an inventor and scientist whose product is still being used today. He earned the needed experience to devise his invention when working in the parish in Prendice.

 

Prokop was responsible for managing the Abbey's farmland in Prendice. He also took charge of water conduit construction, which gave him the exposure to understand mechanical issues. In addition, Prokop developed an interest in electricity, and he began to perform his own experiments with great success on plant growth and therapy, using a small electric voltage.

 

When the death of Georg Wilhelm Richmann, one of the professors at St. Petersburg, reached Prokop's knowledge, he became interested in atmospheric electricity. Richmann had perished by being struck by lightning while observing a storm from a hut. This prompted Prokop to build the "weather-machine" in Prendice, a device to protect from lightning strikes.

 

Prokop devised the very first grounded lightning rod. He observed thunderstorms and deduced that lighting was an electrical spark. He also realized that he could imitate thunder and lightning on a smaller scale.

 

His grounded lightning rod was first erected on the 15th of June in 1754, six years before Benjamin Franklin invented his lightning rod in the United States.

 

Prokop's lightning rod consisted of a pointed slender iron bar, and fastened to it, near the top of the bar, were two crossbars, so producing four arms. Then across which, in turn, a shorter bar was laid, making twelve 'ends.' At each of the twelve extremities, a box with 27 brass needles was attached; each compartment was filled with iron shavings. The main bar was supported by a 132-foot wooden column, and iron chains connected the main bar to the ground. The rod was designed to split the lightning spark into as many smaller sparks as there were needles (324) to reduce its force.

 

His lightning rod invention was not popular and was received with suspicion, so Prokop removed it in 1756 and turned his interest toward music. However, his theory of atmospheric electricity was published in his papers after his death. 

 

Apart from his invention of the first grounded lightning rod, Prokop also created the first electrical musical instrument. This was called the denis d'Or and was played by the hand and the feet, like an organ. It was invented in 1753, and this instrument had properties that allowed it to imitate the sound of other string instruments.

 

Initially, Prokop only studied science to be able to find the truth. But when he realized that he could utilize his findings, he made the most productive use of his scholarly knowledge. In 1765, Prokop died on the 21st of December in Prendice, aged 67.

 

Back to the Asylum.

Whatever the rumors, most seem to believe the clinic offered more humane treatments for the mentally ill than other doctors in the general population at the time and protected them from possibly being abused by relatives.

 

The psychiatric clinic remained in use until 1869, when it was closed down. Vienna's «Fool's Tower» was soon considered a building worthy of condemnation. Some saw the treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill at that time as unworthy. Some, therefore, quickly raised the issue of conditions in mental hospitals and prisons, made systematic inventories, and traveled abroad to gather knowledge and experience. Some thought this building and some of the other early ones that needed to be shut down were due more to architecture than anything. We've discussed several other Asylums on the show, and we've gone over their architecture and why they were designed in the specific way they were, so we won't go into that here, but feel free to go back and listen to those other episodes! 

 

So, there's not an exceptional amount of info on this place, but we thought it was incredible, primarily because of what it is now! We know some of you depraved fuckers will like this and maybe plan a trip! 

The psych facility closed in 1866 but reopened as a new location for the Anatomical-Pathological Museum in the 1970s. While the circular building (known by locals as "the poundcake") houses only a tiny percent of the museum's total collection, it contains some fascinating pieces. Syphilitic skulls that resemble Swiss cheese, jars of disfigured fetuses, and graphic wax displays of untreated STDs all peer out at you from the old cells. It also contains a recreated wonder cabinet, complete with a narwhal tusk and taxidermied monkeys. In total, 70,000 items make up the collection. Since January 2012, the collection has been administered as a branch of the Natural History Museum of Vienna.

 

But only a relatively small part of the collection in the museum's possession is regularly displayed to the general public. Most specimens are part of the "study collection" (Studiensammlung) for medical professionals and medical training only. However, some features are occasionally shown to visitors on guided tours.

 

Some people don't take kindly to the more extreme examples of shocking deformities, so some of these specimens can only be seen by special arrangement. So that's where we're all going!!! Whoooo! 

 

These restrictions are also in force to prevent the Narrenturm from becoming some kind of overtly voyeuristic attraction (this applies in particular to a room with various conjoined twins in large formaldehyde-filled jars – a type of floating twin children's cemetery). They even have a "devil," believe it or not … In actual fact, it's a preserved stillborn baby that back then (1827) was taken to look like the Devil. You need a bit of imagination to see it that way (it doesn't have horns, hooves, or a forked tail), but it's undoubtedly "shocking" to look at. Rather than having been cursed, possessed, or any other such superstitious stuff, the poor thing was simply anencephalic – i.e., a baby deformed so that most of the forebrain, upper skull, and scalp are missing. This is an extreme form of a neural tube defect termed anencephaly, literally meaning 'no brain'). The head ends in big bulging eyes at the top of the front of the head while the flat rear of the head is open, exposing the remnants of brain tissue. The disorder is attributed to a lack of folic acid. Still, it may also result from high mercury exposure, lead, or other toxic heavy metals like Sabbath, Metallica, Slayer, and cannibal corpse. Yes, it's the midnight train…and we felt we had to add that during the tour. Apparently, they go into the details of the history of tuberculosis treatment. So, there's that. Also on display are various bone diseases, tumors, birth defects (including a full-size Cyclops baby specimen floating in formaldehyde), and countless models of skin diseases (mainly of the 'moulage' technique, i.e., taken directly from the sufferer's body and then painted more or less realistically), so that's gross. 

 

There is a taxidermy specimen of a "stuffed" child, the whole body! The unfortunate patient had suffered from a severe form of congenital ichthyosis, a skin condition affecting the entire body's surface skin. Next is the skeleton of a woman who had suffered from severe rickets, resulting in such twisted bones and a bent, shortened back that she was only about 20 inches "tall." Finally, there are the leg bones of a man who had been seven feet something tall at the other extreme end – a giant. His shinbone is longer than the rickets woman's entire body. 

 

So on top of all of the asylum stuff, now there's all this craziness in there! 

 

Oh, also there are rumors of it being haunted too, cus…you know, why not!

 

While we couldn't find much in people talking about any haunted experiences, the Asylum and museum had made many lists of the most creepy haunted Asylums in the world. So we assume there's something there! 

 

Ok, that was Narranturm Asylum. Next, we'll head over to revisit our friends in Australia! We love you crazy fuckers down under! First, we're gonna check out the Beechworth asylum!

 

In the rolling hills of Beechworth, near Victoria, Australia, you'll find a dilapidated old building known as the Mayday Lunatic Asylum, once one of the largest asylums in all of Australia. When the Asylum closed its doors for good in 1995, numerous patients died during its 128-year reign.

 

Bone-chilling sightings, horrid smells of rotting flesh, and a history of inducing nightmares in even the most seasoned spook lovers – the Beechworth Lunatic Asylum has the fearsome reputation of one of the most haunted sites in Australia. Very few of its patients walked out of the institution alive from 1867 – to 1995. 

 

Built on a hill in Beechworth, Victoria, the site was chosen because of the belief the town's altitude would cleanse the patients of their illnesses, with the winds carrying away their mental afflictions. Seems reasonable…yea…

 

The hospital housed 1200 patients, 600 men, and 600 women, at its peak. As medication wasn't introduced until the 1950s, the center's doctors opted to restrain patients with straight jackets and shackles, and in some cases, they received electroshock treatment. Oh, yea…and of course… there were the lobotomies!!! All the lobotomies!! All it took was a pair of signatures to land you in Beechworth–the request of a friend or relative and that of a medical doctor. So if a husband wanted to get rid of his wife, all he had to do was get a doctor to agree she was unstable. Once there, the new patient would be interviewed by the ward physician. Beechworth was one of many mental institutions operating in Australia at the time, alongside Ardale Mental Hospital and the Sunbury Lunatic Asylum. Some physician interviews have survived to the present day. Unfortunately, they speak of troubled patients, brutal treatment, and little hope of escape. 

 

The patients' stories were taken down verbatim by a ward doctor, described by one patient as Dr. O'Brien, who made notes over time about their progress and prospects for work and recovery. 

 

One interview goes as follows:

 

Daniel Dooley, 59

 

23/8/1892

 

"I was brought by a policeman because I was silly, and I was in the habit of saying my prayers. I stayed a night out looking for a quartz reef. I value it at 100 pounds. I've been at Dunolly on an unemployment pass. I brought a tent. I saw a lot of larrikins there, and they burned my tent. When I came back I could not find the place. I met five men dressed like navvies (Irish workers). I spoke to them and they did not answer. I met more and I spoke and they said they were ghosts. I wanted to go into a house, but they said it was haunted. I then saw the Devil — like a steam engine. I then saw the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) and I spoke to her and shook hands with her. She took a tree up to make shelter for me and sent J. C. (Jesus Christ) to obtain another for me. She lifted up the tree as easy as I can this chair. And there was music and ejaculations of the Hail Mary. I asked for money and she had a bird in her hand and placed it on a perch, and one of the men had a purse with him but that money I've not got yet. I told a priest and he told me to be off."

 

There were 4 other accounts. Unfortunately, none of these 5 men that have these statements survived their time in the Asylum. 

 

Nathaniel Buchanan, a researcher for Aradale Ghost Tours, which covers the Ararat institution and the disused Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum at Beechworth, said treatment in the mid to late 1800s was well behind modern practices.

 

"Treatment was mostly restraint," he said.

 

"There were none of the modern medicines, that mostly came in the 1950s."

 

"Restraint would start with a straight jacket, if that wasn't suitable the 'lunatic' could be placed in an isolation box until they settled down."

 

"There was no distinction between epilepsy and schizophrenia. In that time, there were four classifications for lunacy — mania, melancholia, dementia and paranoia."

 

"There number of conditions has increased from four to about 2000 since then."

 

"Many of the women in the institutions in the late 1800s were likely to have been suffering from post-natal depression, but that was just classified as melancholia," he said.

 

"Also it took just two signatures for somebody to be taken in. If a man wanted his wife gone, and his friends knew about it, he could get them to say his wife was mad, and she'd be taken.

 

"At one stage it also took two signatures to be discharged, but that was later increased to eight signatures, meaning it was a lot harder to get out."

 

Inmates were given work in an 1800s movement towards "moral treatment" — teaching patients proper morals by giving them trades and responsibilities.

 

Women were tasked with sewing and washing while men made shoes and tended farms.

 

One particularly cruel feature of Beechworth was what is known as "Ha-Ha walls." The key feature of a Ha-Ha wall was a trench built on the interior of the Asylum's walls. This made the wall appear low enough that inmates weren't imprisoned from the outside while ensuring that none of them could actually escape. 

 

Given the harsh treatment of the patients at Beechwood, it's no wonder that this Asylum is considered another of the most haunted in the world. 

 

Speaking to ABC News in 2008, Adam Win-Jenkins, who ran ghost tours of the site, said there are stories of mass shock treatments in which almost the entire patient population was shocked in one session.

 

The rooms where these treatments took place are where the paranormal activity seems to occur.

 

In 2015, a man named Gaurav Tiwari, the founder of the Indian Paranormal Society who has since passed away, saw a little girl kneeling in the darkness of the infamous wing.

 

Adelaide ghost hunter Allen Tiller also had an experience in a wing called the "bullpen," which housed aggressive young people aged between 18 and 25.

 

He heard a door slamming and "footsteps up the hallway," he told Nova100 in 2015.

 

But even before the center closed, it was plagued by ghost stories. Some buildings have since been demolished following an electrical fire.

 

In 1951, a fire swept through the male wing causing considerable damage. An article from The Herald Sun that year read:

 

"400 male patients, many naked, were rescued from Beechworth asylum today, minutes before a fire caused the blazing top storey of the mental hospital to collapse... 11 patients escaped into the surrounding mountainous country. Seven were later recaptured, but four — described as not dangerous — are still at large."

 

Bristol, one of the wards knocked down, was where a deceased male doctor could commonly be spotted roaming the halls.

 

The other common sighting is Matron Sharpe, who was often seen by the nurses. They report seeing the Matron sitting with patients facing electroshock treatment. Those who witnessed the figure say the room would turn icy cold, but her presence seemed to comfort the patients.

 

Its rooms each tell an eerie tale, too. One of which is the story of Jim Kelly - Ned Kelly's uncle.

 

After burning down his sister-in-law's house while a young Ned was inside (but escaped unscathed), Jim was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor by Sir Redman Barry - who later sentenced his nephew Ned Kelly to death.

 

As part of his sentence, Jim was sent to the institution to help build the hospital. However, after serving his time, his mind "was broken," so he spent the rest of his days as a patient at the hospital until he died in 1903.

 

Jim's body was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in the Beechworth cemetery, as were the rest of the Asylum's deceased patients.

 

Not until the 1980s did patients actually receive their own graves and headstone. Before this, they were also buried in the opposite direction to everyone else. Setting them apart from the rest of society as the Asylum had done while living.

 

Another story from the haunted grounds involves a man who disappeared. Despite desperate efforts by staff to find him, several weeks after he disappeared, a resident dog called Max was found chewing a leg near the grounds' entry.

 

This led to finding the man's body up a tree, presumably where he had attempted to escape. But, unfortunately, his body had been there so long that his leg had fallen off into Max's possession. This was also the cause of the stench that lingered on the hospital grounds.

 

Workmen at the hospital have reported hearing the sound of children laughing and playing; when they investigated the sound, they could not trace its source. Several years ago, a parent noticed their 10-year-old son talking to himself while on a ghost tour. When asked who he was talking to, the boy said he was talking to another boy called James, who lived there.

 

One patient, a big chain-smoking woman, was thrown out of a window to her death by another patient who wanted her cigarettes. Because the woman was Jewish, her body was not allowed to be moved until a Rabbi had seen it, so her body was left lying out the front of the hospital dead for 2 days while the Rabbi made the trip up from Melbourne. Her ghost has been seen on the spot where she fell by several witnesses over the last decade.

 

The gardens of Beechworth have long been subdivided into allotments; those who live nearby have seen the ghost of a man wearing a green woolen jacket. The spirit is thought to be a gardener named Arthur, who worked the gardens for many years earning ten shillings a week. He wore his green jacket in winter and summer, and no one could persuade him to remove it. After Arthur died, it was discovered why; Arthur had been secretly storing his wages in the seam of his jacket. When the nurses opened it, they found 140 pounds hidden inside, over four years of his wages. 

 

Well…we know you love this stuff, so we'll throw in another quick one! Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital in South Korea! In 1982 the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital was established outside Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, by a Mr. Hong. The original building was just over 11,000m² and spread across three floors. Sometime during the early 1990s, two additional buildings were added, which increased the size by another 500m². In July 1996, the hospital closed a short time later and was left abandoned and unmaintained for over two decades.

 

Nefarious rumors began to spread about the hospital's closure, and ghost hunters and urban explorers started flocking to the spooky site in droves. As a result, Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital quickly gained a reputation as one of the top three haunted buildings in South Korea. But until an article was published by CNN in 2012 featuring Gonjiam as one of the world's most terrifying locations, the hospital mainly had maintained its ghostly reputation domestically.

 

Sources discussing the history of Gonjiam and the hospital's fate aren't widespread on the English side of the internet, so the majority of research for this article was done using Korean sources. So, however, specific dates and versions of stories and events vary from reference to authority, so it's worth taking some information with a grain of salt. So enjoy Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital for the creepy legacy it left behind, but don't consider it a perfect reflection of the history of psychiatric hospitals in South Korea.

 

So what's all the fuss about? What makes this particular abandoned hospital so terrifying?

 

It helps that the entire building looks like a living, breathing 'haunted insane asylum' trope:

• Collapsed ceilings.

• Long echoing corridors.

• Doors that shut on their own.

• Patient rooms are littered with old mattresses and forgotten personal items.

 

The main building is a concrete block with a zigzagging exterior staircase and windowless black holes peering into the eerie interior from the outside. The building just looks haunted. And what do creepy abandoned buildings need? A ghost story, of course. And it didn't take long for one to begin making the rounds.

 

According to legend, many patients at Gonjiam died mysteriously, forcing the hospital to shut down permanently. Some believe the murders were committed by the hospital owner, who was accused of keeping the patients' hostage. However, it's said that the owner fled to America after the victims' families and government authorities began investigating the unexplained deaths.

 

Another story says Gonjiam's doctors and director were driven to madness while working alongside the mentally ill patients, which led the director to end his own life. Finally, some believe his suicide was caused by a ghost who possessed his body and drove him to insanity.

 

And the many other ghosts that haunt Gonjiam's abandoned halls are the victims of the psychotic doctors and murderous owner. So while the hospital is closed for the living, the former patients of Gonjiam are trapped forever in the place where they met their gruesome end.

 

The real reason for the hospital's closure is much less exciting…

The hospital director didn't commit suicide, nor was Gonjiam closed due to the mistreatment or murder of patients. Business at Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital actually came to an end because of finances, not mad doctors. With the implementation of the Water Source Protection Act in South Korea, a new sewage treatment facility became a sudden legal requirement for the hospital. This caused a disagreement between the owner and the director over whether or not it was worth the financial strain to install a new treatment facility. While talks were ongoing in 1997, the elderly owner passed away, and a new treatment facility was never installed, so the hospital remained closed. When the former owner's son took over the property, he neglected to maintain it, and the hospital fell into disrepair.

 

As for the former hospital's director, he was alive and well at the closing of Gonjiam and allegedly opened another psychiatric hospital in the province of Gangwon-do, east of Seoul.

 

Essentially, nothing about the legend surrounding Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital is actually true. And a lot of the rumors seem to come from a South Korean television show called 이영돈 PD 논리로 풀다 (ENG: Solve with the logic of PD Lee Young-don), which had an episode featuring the reported hauntings at Gonjiam.

 

The Asylum is no longer standing, but it isn't hard to see why stories ran wild about this place. Just look at pictures of it before it was demolished. And despite the legends not being true, the reports of hauntings still existed until the day the place was destroyed. Many people did die there, so there is definitely that possibility. If you look around, you can find chilling stories about sneaking in and experiencing everything from strange sounds, screaming, and even apparitions and shadows moving about. 

 

We wanted to throw this one in because it looks creepy, and it's on a place we've not covered anything in yet.. plus the urban legends surrounding the site are pretty awesome in their own right!

 

Since we ended in South Korea, we're gonna do the best Korean horror movies as per rotten tomatoes!

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-korean-horror-movies/