Ghosts of The Rock
Reporter Shane Cowlishaw and photographer Lawrence Smith were granted access to Mt Eden Prison and discovered a building steeped in history and legend.
It is, cleaner Sahil Kumar says, a rather unsettling place to work. The rats don’t bother him, he’s seen plenty of those before. Nor, even, the dead pigeons , killed by the razor wire high above. It’s the ghosts. If you ask the people who continue to maintain ‘‘The Rock’’ since it was closed for good in 2011, Mt Eden Prison is haunted.
There’s the lone loudspeaker that continues to crackle and moan, despite the PA system being shut down five years ago.
An electrician was called in to investigate, and he cut all the wires leading to it. But it continues to crackle and moan.
That’s unsettling, but it’s a story about another contractor undertaking emergency repairs that Kumar is eager to tell.
The contractor, crouched down in a cell hard at work, swears a Maori inmate appeared behind him and yelled at him to ‘‘get the f... out’’ before walking away.
By the time the contractor scrambled up to respond, he’d disappeared.
The man sprinted out of the prison and refused to return.
Kumar says just the other day a colleague had to head in at night to check something.
‘‘I’ve never seen anyone so loaded down with torches, he was shining like a lighthouse.’’
It’s little wonder Mt Eden is the subject of urban legend.
Built more than 150 years ago, the imposing fortress was constructed in a style designed to instil fear into those sent there.
A panopticon prison with spokes radiating from a centre hub, it was the site of dozens of executions, including New Zealand’s last, in 1957.
Since The Rock’s doors were shuttered, it has remained empty, save for semi-regular maintenance and cleaning to keep it from falling completely apart.
Weeds rule the entranceway and shadows dominate inside.
Row upon row of spartan cells stand empty; cracked toilets and rusting bed frames are all that remain.
But unknown to most, even before the prison was closed, Mt Eden features floor-to-ceiling murals painted by artistic inmates.
Giant sea creatures dominate the visitors’ room, including a pair of scantily-clad mermaids deemed too erotic by some staff.
In another area, a mother sporting a moko and carrying an infant on her back watches forlornly over an empty wing.
Outside, razor wire and water cannons continue to stand watch over graffiti-marked exercise yards where prisoners not only stretched their legs but often sorted out their differences.
Philip Lister, who has been with Corrections for 42 years, including a stint at Mt Eden, has become the department’s unofficial historian.
Guards stood watch above the prisoners outside, but the violence that broke out was often finished by the time staff arrived to intervene, he says.
Auckland’s Southern Motorway also snakes almost directly above the yards and contraband would be thrown from cars despite the mesh wire hanging overhead.
‘‘When they built the motorway we had a series of towers that had armed sentries with rifles. On one particular occasion I was standing there, I hadn’t been working here very long and that was usually where you got put, sentry duty, a car pulled up, said gidday to me and threw a tennis ball into the yard and I thought ‘do I shoot them or not’?
‘‘The chief officer when I reported said ‘certainly not, the things wouldn’t fire anyway’.’’
Mt Eden’s most notorious feature is the execution ground. Two sets of three holding cells face each other, the last stop for prisoners before the gallows erected against a stone wall outside.
Lister says that as the time of their death approached, prisoners were taken down to the holding cells and put on ‘‘death watch’’.
Prison staff would sit with them right up until their execution, trying to keep them calm with games of cards.
Just before the appointed time a prisoner would be weighed and the hangman brought to the cell, peering through a peephole to make sure he had their size and weight correct.
‘‘The cell would be unlocked, the prisoner would be pinioned either with their hands to the front or the side, they would be steered out of the cell and right outside would be the steps to the gallows.’’
All 36 executions carried out at Mt Eden would have been traumatic for staff and often a stiff drink would be handed around by management.
‘‘It was a very, very nerveracking and horrible situation for all the prison officers.’’
Today the holding cells remain, but old gym equipment stands where the gallows used to be.
Mt Eden’s long history is a colourful one. It originally consisted of a timber stockade built in 1856, and the opening of another building on the site in 1865 allowed the crumbling gaol on Queen St to be demolished.
Its stone wall, well-known to Aucklanders, was built by prisoners using volcanic rock from a neighbouring quarry and it was completed in the mid-1870s at a cost of £1800.
But even before it was finished there were rumblings it should be closed. Views about how to incarcerate prisoners were changing and in 1951 the Government bowed to public pressure and announced it would be demolished. This promise was not to be kept, however, due to a shortage of funds.
During its history it held some of the country’s most notorious criminals, including serial escaper George Wilder and samurai sword killer Antonie Dixon. And an infamous riot in 1965 left the building in ruins.
Former Mt Eden manager Neville Mark is frank on the challenges of running such a foreboding facility.
‘‘I think to live in a place like this you had to be quite hardy, there was a lack of heating and there were some hard nuts in here too in terms of their sentences and of course there were some staff who were very similar to that too, and occasionally you had your clashes.’’
The design of the prison, with all its nooks and crannies, meant there was often punishment dished out away from staff eyes.
But despite the danger, the prison was held in respect by both inmates and staff.
‘‘The staff enjoyed working here, even though the walls would sort of run with water in the peak of winter time and things like that, they seemed to be a family and help each other.
‘‘Prisoners had a respect for this place and for some reason they believed you had moved up in something when you were actually in Mt Eden, and that’s why it was called The Rock. Both staff and prisoners called it The Rock.’’
The future of Mt Eden remains uncertain. As a category one listed heritage building, demolition is prohibited.
Its location is also problematic, situated immediately next to its replacement and thus posing security concerns. A railway line borders the north wall and a motorway the east, making access and parking difficult.
But to leave a building of such historic and architectural importance empty seems a waste and Corrections agrees.
It’s seeking a partner to conduct a feasibility study into possible uses for the prison, leaning towards a museum.
It’s unfit for use as accommodation, and of course, there’s the issue of the ghosts.
Would that be an attraction to the public, or scare them away?
Mark has heard all the stories and won’t rule out the possibility Mt Eden remains inhabited.
‘‘A number of staff and prisoners will tell you the same thing, throughout the time they’ve spent here there are times they’ve noticed events that could not been explained.
‘‘The place had been blessed a lot in regards to those feelings and events but it appears it’s still happening now since it’s been closed down. Staff have heard pianos being played, telephones going and lights going off and on.
‘‘The silent, unsaid word around this place is definitely ‘haunted’.’’