By Louis Collins for The House
The Parliament Library was converted into a haunted house on Halloween. Photo: VNP/Louis Collins
In politics, they say you shouldn't have any skeletons in your closet. But what about in your Parliament?
For Halloween, Parliament's visitor centre - which usually runs daytime tours for members of the public - ran a ghost tour of the Parliamentary Library. The library is the oldest of the buildings that comprise Wellington's parliamentary precinct along with the Beehive and Parliament House, and is also where there have been the most reports of paranormal activity.
In politics, they say you shouldn't have any skeletons in your closet. But what about in your Parliament? Photo: VNP/Louis Collins
A team of Parliament's tour guides assumed the role of Victorian-era ghosts for the night, as they led a group of visitors on a jumpscare-filled journey through the old library. The gothic revival architecture made for a spooky setting to hear stories of supernatural sightings.
As we walked around the old building, the ghosts tour guides, offered ghostly anecdotes in the form of poems. Here's an example:
"If you should feel you're being watched
Listen for the faintest sound of a shot
Poor William Larnach took his own life
To escape the ruin caused by his wife.
The need to maintain at any cost
The illusion that none of his worth had been lost
Exacted a heavy toll and we fear
Lead to a bullet hole, right through here."
Parliament House: A place to watch democracy in action, and get spooked. Photo: VNP/Louis Collins
That haunting poem talks of William Larnach, the same Larnach as the castle in Dunedin.
The former MP served six terms in Parliament, and is perhaps the most famous of the building's alleged ghosts.
After the deaths of his first and second wives, Larnach married Constance, in 1891. Constance was in her early thirties - around the same age as his children. That same year, his favourite daughter died of typhoid.
The word around town was that Larnarch's son, Douglas was having an affair with his new stepmother. All of this, as well as impending bankruptcy was too much for Larnarch and on 12 October 1898 he was found dead in Committee Room J, with a revolver in his hand.
Through the years, generations of security guards have told stories of seeing Larnach and hearing doors opening mysteriously as they locked up for the night in the library.
Halloween is done and dusted for 2024 and Parliament is returning for another sitting block, but they are returning to a precinct with almost as many ghost stories as there have been Prime Ministers. Our House: a place to watch democracy in action, and get spooked.
Photo: VNP/Louis Collins