Case file · Haunting
Seacliff asylum fire
On 8 December 1942 a fire in a locked ward of Seacliff Lunatic Asylum near Dunedin killed 37 women; the vast Gothic hospital, long rumoured to be haunted, was later demolished.
1942 CE · -45.68, 170.62 · status: legend
The account
Seacliff opened in 1884 and was once the largest building in New Zealand; the writer Janet Frame was a patient. The site is now a holiday park, and ghost stories cluster around the remaining buildings and grounds.
The sceptical view
The fire is a documented disaster; the haunting tales are later local lore with no evidence beyond anecdote.