Williamstown’s ghost tours are in danger of dying as new developments replace some of the suburb’s oldest haunts.
Lantern Ghost Tours has moved into Pentridge Prison and expanded to other locations as tourist coaches increasingly bypass Williamstown, says ghost host Jacqueline Travaglia.
She said business started to decline about three years ago with the demolition of Williamstown’s oldest house, built circa 1842, on Aitken Street. Williamstown’s second-oldest building, the former Oriental Hotel, circa 1854, is now facing demolition to make way for high-rise development on the former Port Phillip Woollen Mill site. Evolve Development plans to demolish the corner hotel as part of a much bigger development over several blocks, to build a six-storey, 83-dwelling apartment block.
“We have seen a decline in business since losing the oldest house in Williamstown, historic mills and now, potentially, the Oriental Hotel,” Ms Travaglia said. She said visitors on the daytime history coach tours “feel Williamstown is losing its historic charm. We have lost the uninterrupted historic streetscape which was once a major drawcard”.
Ms Travaglia said only six corner hotels remained in Williamstown, and the Oriental was a favourite on the ghost tour. “It was an important meeting point for sailors and the unions they tried to set up,” she said. “Sailors were poorly treated, some say treated as badly as convicts – often starved and beaten. The Oriental Hotel used to send its finest women out to lure sailors to jump ship. The hotel would then sell the sailors back to the captain at double the rate and make a huge profit.”
The Heritage Council of Victoria will hold a two-day hearing in August after receiving 53 submissions responding to the proposed demolition of the Oriental Hotel.
