Erasmus Castle, one of Tshwane’s most haunted houses, has been restore to its former glory – down to the bantams and geese that gaggle in the grounds.

Here We are Again

The undoubted star of the 1950 Pierre de Wet classic, Hier’s Ons Weer (Here We Are Again), was the turreted, dilapidated Erasmus Castle. Against a stormy night sky it loomed eerily from atop a koppie in the hills to the east of Pretoria. An owl hooted.

The film was a surreal fusion of serious musical with slapstick comedy. On the one hand were the cream of Afrikaans talent assembled to entertain guests at the Wierda Resort. Among them was the Hendrik Susan traditional orchestra featuring a young Nico Carstens on piano accordion; the fabulous Dave Barlow and his mouth organ; tenor Dick Lourens and soprano Hanlie van Niekerk; and a choir on a horse drawn wagon that brought the surrounding hills to life with music.

Keystone Cops

On the other was a Laurel and Hardy style Keystone Cops caper in the adjoining castle. Here a pair of crooks searching for hidden loot from a long ago bank robbery bumped into a couple of bumbling Sherlock Holmes clad detectives (Al Debbo and Frederik Burgers) put up in the creepy, spider web entwined annex because there was no room at the inn. The villains, realising they were not alone, concocted a plan to scare the hapless dicks out of their wits and from the castle.

The spooky ambience together with their ghostly endeavours that included clanking chains, creaking doors and hands pushing through walls gave rise to the legend that the Erasmus Castle was haunted. Soon stories were circulating of apparitions in bedrooms and a mummy tottering round the overgrown grounds. In no time the property was infested with trespassers in search of a cheap thrill in the dead of night. It was a far cry from the grand old days.

The Erasmus Family

Carel and Martha Erasmus arrived in the Irene area with the Voortrekkers in the mid 19^th century. They settled on the farm Garstfontein and in 1860 built a typical thatch pioneer house with reed ceilings and compacted termite soil floors covered with a layer of dung. Here Martha, a famed herbalist, attended to her large family and the health needs of the neighbouring community. Those beyond help were buried in the family cemetery in the valley below.

When Carel died all that was left to his son Jochemus were some books and a horse. The latter together with a pair of corduroy trousers was traded for a portion of the Garstfontein farm that became the first piece of a land and business empire that stretched into present day Limpopo Province.

The Pretoria Boom

Then came the real boom. Pretoria would have remained a small rural town had gold not been discovered 80 kilometres to the south on the Witwatersrand in 1886, heralding the greatest gold-rush ever. While the pious Boers in the capital looked on in horror as a veritable Gomorrah mushroomed on their doorstep, the wealth generated allowed them to transform Pretoria into the elegant city it is today.

The opportunities presented did not pass Jochemus by and four years later he and his wife Johanna were able to build a comfortable home among a bowl of koppies near the old pioneer house. But it quickly became inadequate as their growing fortune gave wings to grand ideas. A flight of fantasy that included an enchanted castle on the hill above.

Oom Jochemus’s Place

It appears that the flamboyant Johanna was the prime dreamer. Cultured and artistic, she yearned for the style of Europe manifesting itself with such grandeur on Parktown Ridge in Johannesburg. There the mansions of the Randlords featured turrets and spires, pediments and porticoes, guest and music rooms, strip flooring and stained glass inlaid French doors that opened onto deeply recessed verandahs. Beyond, commanding spectacular views, were terraced gardens on which a band played and the best champagne was served.

The Erasmus’s commissioned Dutch architect van der Benn to design a castle that came to be known as Oom Jochemus’s Place. This Victorian art nouveau mansion, incorporating slate from a quarry on the farm, included a majestic entrance hall with Oregon pine floors, a large dining room with a 20-seater dinner table, sweeping staircase into the tower, bedrooms with white linen ceilings and a music room that opened onto the rose garden. Just the place for a soiree.

Shakespearean Concerts

‘The Erasmus family were very musical and they often hosted dances for their friends on the verandah and in the garden,’ says cultural historian Thersia Rossouw, who is completing her thesis on the Erasmus family and the castle. ‘From time to time they would also put on Shakespearean concerts – even bringing a horse into the drawing room for the staging of Twelfth Night.’

It was a lifestyle that could not survive the coming Great Depression. After that the Erasmus Castle became impossible to maintain and it began a slow slide towards becoming the dilapidated ghost-house immortalised in Hier’s Ons Weer. In the 1970s the property was expropriated by the Pretoria City Council and later sold to Armscor for their new hi-tech headquarters with the proviso that the castle be restored and maintained by its new owners.

The Ghosts

Reprieved, renovated and redecorated with period furniture, the castle has been reborn a national monument. Every detail was attended to – down to the bantams and geese that once resided on the grounds.

That is not all, as it appears the original family remain in residence. Staff who now work in the building have reported hearing mysterious footsteps, doors creaking open, taps being turned on and lights switched off. A guest at a function was adamant that a woman in period costume led him into the garden before disappearing. And the two or three Erasmus children that it is said contracted leprosy and were confined in the room under the main tower until their death still roam the staircase and corridors.

Outside the sun is setting and an owl hoots in the distance. It is hauntingly beautiful.