As the sun sets over Cape Town, casting long shadows across its historic buildings, a different kind of presence comes alive: one of spectral figures and ghostly tales that linger in the city’s air.
Founded in 1652, Cape Town, South Africa’s oldest city, boasts a rich tapestry of history, woven together with myths and stories of the supernatural.
Tokai Manor House
Built in 1796, Tokai Manor House was described at the time as being the most outstanding home built in the Cape Peninsula. Designed by French architect Louis Michel Thibault, the manor looks like something straight out of a vintage horror film, with its large pillars, winding staircases and sweeping lawns.
Petrus Michiel Eksteen, a known party-throwing enthusiast and one of the manor’s first residents, is believed to haunt the premises on horseback. A dare gone wrong, to ride his horse up the stairs into the manor’s dining room, sadly took Eksteen and his equestrian pal’s lives. The spectral pair are now said to wander the forest and reattempt their dangerous dare.
The Tokai Manor House was temporarily closed in late April 2025 due to a wildfire that spread through the mountains above Tokai, necessitating an evacuation as a safety precautions.
Location: Porter Reform Estate, Cape Town
Rust en Vreugd
Rust en Vreugd was built in 1778 for a member of the Dutch East India Company, Williem Cornelis Boers.
It is said to be home to a variety of spooks and spectres, including a ghostly woman who roams the first floor of the home, floating in mid-air from room to room.
Another feminine apparition peers down at visitors from windows and sends chills down their spines. Visitors have even claimed to have had their shoulders tapped and upon turning around to see who touched them, they are met with no one.
- Location: 78 Buitenkant St, Cape Town City Centre, Cape Town
- Contact: 021 464 3280
Castle of Good Hope
The Castle of Good Hope is world-renowned in paranormal communities for its hauntings and general eerie happenings.
The building’s Die Donker Gat (Dark Hole) once served as a torture chamber, and now this windowless room is home to disembodied voices, shadowy figures and footsteps.
The Castle is also said to be home to two resident ghosts. Lady Anne Barnard, who was a notable socialite, lived in the castle in life and death could not tear her away. She is said to still entertain guests and tend to visitors, as was once expected of her.
One of the more terrifying ghosts that roam the Castle is Governor Pieter Gysbert van Noodt. In life, he was tasked with sentencing prisoners to hang and in death, he has adopted the job of terrifying visitors and staff to no end. Allegedly cursed by a prisoner sentenced to hang, the governor roams the castle as a two-metre-tall, shadowy apparition full of fury.
- Location: Castle St, Foreshore, Cape Town
- Times: Monday to Sunday, 9am to 4pm
- Contact: 012 461 4673
Kronendal
Kronendal was built in 1715 and is home to a haunting sadder than it is scary. Owned for a brief time in the 1800s by the Cloete family, one of the family’s daughters, Elsa, has been witnessed as haunting the home.
Elsa fell in love with a British soldier during her life, a forbidden affair that resulted in the soldier taking his own life and Elsa dying of a broken heart.
Elsa’s ghost has been spotted five times since the 1970s and each sighting has had no malice or fright attached to it.
- Location: 140 Main Rd, Hout Bay, Cape Town
Green Point Lighthouse
Arguably one of the most recognisable landmarks in Cape Town, the red-and-white striped Green Point lighthouse dates back to the 1800s, and with its historical significance comes hearsay of ghost stories and paranormal activity that’s swirled around for generations.
The story goes that the lighthouse was once guarded by a lighthouse keeper named W.S. West, who disappeared for reasons unknown. However, his spirit still roams around the tower as a one-legged figure called ‘Daddy West’ – it is said that his voice can be heard echoing along the tower walls late at night.
In 2014, the Cape Town Paranormal Investigations Unit (yes, that’s a thing) went on an expedition to the lighthouse and came back with this recording of a demonic voice, which supposedly provides some concrete evidence for the rumours.
The Green point lighthouse is a national heritage site and is open to the public for a fee.
- Location: 100 Beach Rd, Mouille Point, Cape Town, 8005
- Times: Monday to Friday, 10 am – 3 pm
- Contact: 021 449 5171
Ghost House of Rondebosch
This three-story Edwardian dwelling of a bygone era gives off a mysterious aura in the leafy suburb of Rondebosch. Apparently, during the 1970s, the house was used by a cult group to conduct many sinister activities, leaving a dark and mysterious energy behind.
Those who have been brave enough to venture close to the gates have spotted a ghostly old man wandering through the rooms and have heard doors opening and closing shut for no apparent reason.
- Location: 99 Milner Rd, Rondebosch, Cape Town, 7700
Groote Schuur Hospital
Since opening its doors in 1938, Groote Schuur Hospital has seen many patients, staff, and visitors roam about its halls. However, it’s believed that some never really left.
Patients and staff have reported sightings of a young nurse who committed suicide, a patient who fell to his death while trying to escape, and the spooky but friendly, Sister Fatima who has been seen helping nurses on their rounds.
- Location: Main Rd, Observatory, Cape Town, 7935
- Times: Open 24 hours
- Contact: 021 404 9111
First published by Cape {town} etc
Compiled by Sibuliso Duba
Also see: Cape Town recognised as third happiest city in the world
