12th Avenue Vampire – Toowong Queensland

12th Avenue Vampire – Toowong Queensland

Statue at Toowong Cemetery - © Allen Tiller 2005

Only two cemeteries in the world are alleged to have a vampire that dwells amongst the graves, Highgate Cemetery in London, and Toowong Cemetery in Brisbane.

 It is said that a black shadow with razor-sharp teeth drifts through the trees on 12^th Avenue, a small road lined with graves within the Toowong Cemetery.

 Local legend has it that two gravediggers were called upon to exhume a body; they were puzzled by the softness of the ground, which appeared to have been recently disturbed. Once they had dug down to the coffin, the men were astounded to find the nails of the coffin had been pushed from the inside outward.
  The gravediggers reluctantly removed the coffin lid. They found the woman inside had not decomposed, even after 20 years of internment. It is claimed on the two gravediggers, by far the braver of the two reached into the coffin and touched the face of the corpse. Her head is said to have rolled to one side upon his touch, and as it did, she smiled, revealing two rows of sharp teeth.

The gravediggers dumped the coffin back in the grave, backfilled it, and left never to return again.

Toowong cemetery - © Allen Tiller 2005

 In more recent retellings of the story, the Vampire has gained the name of “Lily”. Retellings now also add an extra element of gore, with claims that her mouth was filled with shark-like rows of teeth, and thick red gore spilled from her mouth as she looked up at the gravediggers.

 There have also been reports of Lily the Vampire being seen during the day. One story claims that she smiled at passers-by around midday one afternoon, revealing her rows of shiny sharp teeth. The witnesses to this event fled the cemetery, only to find Lily had somehow beaten them to the gates and now blocked their way out. Lily the Vampire, then stepped aside gracefully and allowed the witnesses to pass unharmed.

Have you experienced the Vampire of Toowong Cemetery? Let me know in the comments...

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2019

Bibliography

Oct. 28th, 2007, Hauntings and the Paranormal, (2007) ,https://hauntings.livejournal.com/528101.html

Toowong Cemetery, Abandoned Histories, (2013), http://abandonedhistories.blogspot.com/2013/05/toowong-cemetery.html

Hill, T, Brisbane’s Buried Secrets, Weekend Notes, (2012), https://www.weekendnotes.com/brisbane-buried-secrets/

Schaumann, D, A Strange Thing Happened At Toowong Cemetery, (20 Oct 2010) http://schaumann.com.au/2010/10/a-strange-thing-happened-at-toowong-cemetery/

Sweetman, K, Ghost stories are few and far between at Toowong Cemetery, The Sunday Mail (QLD), ( 15 August 2015), https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/ghost-stories-are-few-and-far-between-at-toowong-cemetery/news-story/0f51bed5a100d0d3223889c5dbc518cc

 ‘Brisbane’s Necropolis’, ‘Black: Australian Dark Culture’. Magazine, Issue 1, (July 2008)

Mortsafe's - Protection Against Grave Robbers

Mortsafe

By now most people have seen the photo (left) that has been being shared via social media, that features a picture of a grave with a steel cage over it. On the photo, writing claims that the steel cage was to stop zombies or vampires from disturbing the body of the dead o already infected vampire/ zombie from being able to dig its way out of the grave, and into the night. This is simply not the case at all

The steel cage is called a “Mortsafe”, (Mort in old French meaning body). The safes were created to protect graves from being disturbed, but not from Vampires or Zombies, but from body snatchers.

During the 18th century in Scotland, there was a need for medical students to learn anatomy from dissecting cadavers, just like we still do today. However in the 18th-century people were not as keen to donate their bodies to science, so usually, the bodies of convicted criminals were used, donated by the Government.

Due to the demand for fresh bodies, trade in the newly deceased sprung up, grave robbers became prevalent, digging up fresh corpses and selling them to local Medical Universities. The Government turned a blind eye to what was going on, they also quashed any publicity that grave robbing brought, this was done because, the few people who were caught were often publicly lynched, in one case a riot ensued after a grave robber had been caught.

The body-snatching continued into the 19th century and grew exponentially as more Medical universities opened, admitting more students, who in turn needed more bodies.

Eventually what was hidden came to light and a great amount of public outrage surfaced, laws were changed and body snatching, grave robbing and other similar crimes were outlawed throughout the United Kingdom.

The Mortsafe itself was thought to have been first used in approximately 1816. Heavy iron and stone were most often used as it was the hardest to breakthrough. The norm was to place a very large iron or stone plate over the coffin which had rods with heads, which were kept in place with a second plate, which would then be locked. It would take two separate keys to remove the mortsafe.

The safe would be left over the body for about six weeks, then removed when the body had sufficiently decayed that it would be no use for the Medical school and therefore not dug up.

Mortsafes was not the only solution thought up to prevent body snatching, Vaults crypts and watch-houses were also built in an effort to curb the practice.

Today very few Mortsafes are left, most can be found in Scotland or portable, mortsafes in Museums.

To finish this blog, a small piece from the  Columbia County Historical & Genealogical Society Newsletter:

"... the cages are mortsafes, structures intended to prevent the theft of a body for use by anatomy instructors, doctors or medical students who at the time had no legal source of cadavers for their work. This was a serious problem, now all but forgotten, throughout most of the 18th and 19th centuries not just in this country but also in the British Isles. Other kinds of mortsafes were used as well and examples of some of them may be seen in [Columbia County, Pennsylvania.]

The iron cage mortsafe was prevalent in Scotland before 1830, but most were removed after passage of the Warburton Anatomy Act provided a legal source of anatomical material and ended the need for body snatching in Great Britain. The few remaining mortsafes in Scotland today are now billed as tourist attractions."

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/mortsafe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortsafe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_snatching 

© 2012 Eidolon Paranormal 

Written and researched by 

Allen Tiller 

www.eidolonparanormal.com.au