| The Rose Hall Great House in Montego Bay
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We made a point of visiting Rose Hall, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Jamaica. Armed with the latest in high-tech instant cameras, our intrepid Duppy (Ghost) Busting Selectors took on the Rose Hall challenge and signed up for a tour. What's all the ghost stuff about? Here's a description of Rose Hall, taken from JAMAICA & THE CAYMAN ISLANDS, an excellent guide book written by James Henderson..... |
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"....Rose Hall great house, the most famous in Jamaica. It is a Georgian Mansion with a stone base and a plastered upper storey, high on the hillside, with a fantastic panorama over the coast. Built in the 1770s, Rose Hall was restored in the 1960s to its former splendour, with mahogany floors, interior windows and doorways, panelling and wooden ceilings. It is decorated with silk wallpaper printed with palms and birds, ornamented with chandeliers and furnished with mostly European antiques. There's a bar downstairs and a restaurant. Rose Hall is most famous for the story of its mistress Annie Palmer, who came here in 1820, and the fanciful legends of underground tunnels, bloodstains and hauntings. A renowned beauty, Annie Palmer was widely feared as a black magician, and she is also supposed to have dispatched three husbands (by poison, by stabbing and then pouring boiling oil into his ears, and by strangling) and innumerable lovers, including slaves, whom she simply killed when she was bored of them. She was 4ft 11ins high and was murdered in her bed. There is little evidence to support the legend, an amusing version of which was written up by H. G. de Lisser in his "White Witch of Rose Hall", though maybe you'll be convinced by the ghostly faces that appear in photographs taken by tourists...." It was a dark and stormy night.... well actually it was daytime, but it was dark(er) and stormy which really helped set the mood. The tour began in the basement where we waited in the gift shop for a tour guide. In one corner was located a glass case, displaying letters and photographs sent in by previous visitors. The letters typically read ".... when our pictures came back from the developer, we were astonished to see a face...." or "....notice the headboard and the ornamental brass appearing where there isn't any..." or ".....we hadn't even told our friends about the ghost of Rose Hall when they immediately pointed out a face...." We were pretty skeptical, I have to say. One letter referenced a "bat-like figure" in an attached picture of a chandelier. I thought it was just the dark wood ceiling visible between the crystals. The photo with the "ornamental brass" was interesting, but not very spooky. One photo, however, showed a vague facial figure in front of the headboard in Annie Palmer's room. We were sure that it was one of those one-in-a-million photographs that could never happen again. A tour guide showed up within a few minutes and we were on our way. As the story goes, the house was purchased by a couple from Maryland who put a few million (U.S.) dollars into its restoration. The effort was worth it as Rose Hall is as remarkable as brochures describe it. When we came to the master bedroom with "the headboard", we took turns capturing the moment on Kodak Gold. I positioned myself directly in front of the bed and, peering through the viewfinder, prepared to take that dramatic one-in-a-million photo. "Rhaatid! A duppy!" I exclaimed. There on the headboard, in exactly the same position as the whitish figure in the photo downstairs, I saw an amorphous blur. "This can't be right" I commented excitedly to myself. "I thought they (ghosts) can only be seen in photographs!" Still, there it was, completely shapeless, but definitely present. I moved to my right to get a better angle and much to my amazement, the anomaly moved with me. "Is it trying to face the lens?!?" I thought, shaking the camera in excitement. Then it hit me... no, not the ghost....but a revelation as jarring as a cerebral cold shower. "It's the reflection of my shirt and shorts in the varnish. Boy, what [expletive]!" Yep, that it was. Dressed in a white shirt and shorts, I reflected the gray light from the window quite well. Nonetheless, I was there and other people wanted to take a picture too, so I clicked away with hopes that the magic photographic chemicals would redeem my efforts. Our tour guide lead us through the entire house, telling stories that had relevance to each room. Firing off a volley of shots from two cameras, we felt that we had given any resident duppies sufficient chance to strike a pose for us. So, what did we see when the film came back? We were surprised. Look carefully....
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 "The headboard" |
 Magnified view |
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Ok, Ok. So we're having fun with this. Joking aside, this digitally cleaned-up and magnified image was taken from the headboard shot. You have to admit it's eerie. |
| This mirror looked like any other old mirror when we were there. It seems that the film version has presented a complex tropical scene with palm trees, bushes, and even a person on the left.... |
 A mirror in another room |
 Magnified view |
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What do you think? Let me know by emailing to our show address
reggaeshow@aol.com. Junior doesn't want to know anything about images like this on the net (he won't even have his picture up, imagine posting DUPPIES!). We're even thinking of sending a copy to Rose Hall. Should we? We heard a story about some guy that wanted to see for himself if there was a ghost (duppy) so he got permission to stay overnight in the house. Hours after retiring, he had trouble sleeping. (YEAH! I WOULD!!!!) Anyway, he went to the kitchen to make some tea. As he was sipping it, he heard a scream coming from another part of the house. He put the cup down and ran to investigate. (I would have just RUN!) He found nothing, but when he returned, his tea cup was missing. I believe you can sign up to stay at Rose Hall overnight as part of a tour. Let me know how it goes. I won't be there! Be sure to visit the Official Rose Hall Web Site More pictures on the way.....likkle more. ~ Jack |
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Here's another interesting bit of information on Rose Hall excerpted from the book, Tour Jamaica, by Margaret Morris
ROSEHALL:
This magnificent great house cost 30,000 pounds sterling to build in 1770 - an enormous sum in those days - and was considered the finest in the island. It was damaged during the 1831 slave rebellion and uninhabited thereafter, perhaps because the ghost of the White Witch of Rosehall was rumoured to be in residence. Stripped of its doors and mahogany staircase it fell into ruin. During the 1960s it was purchased by American millionaire John Rollins and restored at vast expense to its present elegance. Restoration of the great house was part of a development scheme that included the construction of the Holiday Inn and Rosehall hotels. Conducted tours are available.
The story of the White Witch of Rosehall, Jamaica's most popular legend, was perpetuated by H.G. de Lisser's novel. Annie Palmer is reported to have been beautiful, lascivious and diabolical. She dabbled in voodoo, tortured her slaves, murdered her husbands and lured into her bed any man, black or white who took her fancy, boasting: If I survive I'll marry five. Annie, it is said, was eventually strangled, by a slave, during an uprising. There is no historical evidence to substantiate this tale. The facts are that the Hon. John Palmer, Custos of St James acquired Rosehall through marriage and built the great house. He was indeed the fourth husband of Rosehall's mistress, Mrs Rosa Palmer, but a memorial to her in St James Parish Church attests to her virtue and the fact that she died peacefully at age 72, predeceasing her husband. A subsequent Ann Palmer, wife of James Palmer, grandnephew of the Custos and heir to Rosehall, was also, research proves, a model wife. But the legend of the White Witch persists, losing nothing in the passage of time and encouraging attempts by various spiritualists to raise Annie's ghost. One attempt in 1978 took place before a large crowd which returned home very disappointed. Clairvoyant Bambos claimed to have conjured up a stout cafe-au-lait lady who led him to her grave behind the house where he discovered an incense burner and voodoo doll inside a termite nest.
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Listener Gallery of Rose Hall Photos Some photos and stories that you've sent in to us! Keep them coming!
 
Sandra Morgan
 
 
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