Ghouls in the Gully: The haunted history of Welly’s Holloway Road
At the end of Aro Valley, Holloway Road hangs like forbidden fruit. To many Aro dwellers, the mention of the road is met with a shudder or a raised brow. It’s been coined as the city’s most haunted street.
‘It’s just got a weird vibe’, they say.
Photos / Georgia Andersen
Six months ago, I viewed my now flat dubbed ‘The Treehouse’ on the infamous road. It's a distinctive maroon three-story, with a tiered garden and a spiral oak staircase. The fairytale like cottages and ever-moving native bush surrounding the road filled me with an overwhelming nostalgia and uneasiness.
I fell in love and signed the lease the next day.
The road is wedged between two banks, overgrown with native bush. Further down, it begins to resemble a dark and twisted fairytale. The former butcher shop is electric blue, and the retired post office is buttercup yellow. At the end, vast farmland is lined by punga and kauri trees. A pair of goats roam freely, looked after by the community.
Rusting boy-racers cloaked in kawakawa sit abandoned, reminiscent of the road’s past as a rubbish dump. Finally, a path invites you into the Waimāpihi reserve where the old schoolhouse sits surrounded by bush and tagged in chalk.
The street is enveloped in a cloak of its own history.
British brickmaker Henry Mitchell purchased the land in 1854 and named it Mitchelltown. He and his family settled into the gully, farming and supplying timber to other settlers. As the supply of timber industry grew, Henry began building cottages for workers. By 1895, Mitchelltown was a thriving working-class community, fit with a schoolhouse, a butcher and two grocers.
My neighbour, Bob, believes Henry Mitchell’s essence still lingers here. Bob lives in a red house perched on the dark side of the valley with his white shepherd, Aroha. He claims Mitchell, who had Celtic ancestry, brought with him the 'Celtic Twilight' — a kind of mythical and supernatural atmosphere.
Bob says through the law of attraction, the type of people who want to live on Holloway Road are magical.
He believes the stream which runs beneath Holloway’s paved road attracts those who are led by emotions, not logic.
"I know five other Cancerians besides myself living on this street,” he says.
The 1900s brought some dark years for the community, with 19 out of 108 men from the street who enlisted in WWI never returning. Many who returned from the war were shellshocked and unable to hold down jobs during the great depression. According to Heritage NZ, many turned to alcohol and violence, and the road fell into decline. By 1935, many on Holloway Road were impoverished and over half of its population faced malnutrition.
The Gully-ites – a 1993 documentary about the eldery residents of Holloway — described the 30s as unbearable. ‘Gully-ite’ is a self-proclaimed nickname for the original close-knit residents of the road. The documentary featured long time Gully-ites, the Swensson family who lived in a electric blue house. Son George Swensson, recalled residents wandering around barefoot and the government telling them, "If you're hungry, eat grass".
A pixelated George remembers proudly, "All this street was out of work, that's why we are all one — the Gully-ites.” George’s family, the Swensson’s, have a long history with the street. His father, Pop Swensson, lived in the same house till he died at 108.
By the 1960s, Holloway had fallen to squalor. A 1963 article by The Evening Post described the street as having "sagging open doors and damp, musty rooms where glass from broken windows crunches underfoot”.
Former Wellington City councillor Stephanie Cook lived on Holloway for 22 years. She believes the road’s rough reputation lingers today. During her time on the road, she says biker gangs and brothels were set up, and taxis even refused to drive there.
“The houses were ramshackle and run down,” Stephanie recalls.
In the 1970s, Victoria University began buying Holloway houses to make space for a sports facility. But residents pushed back, reforming Waimāpihi Gully into a wildlife reserve. After lengthy discourse, the university abandoned plans in the early 1980s.
Holloway began to shift by the 1990s — it’s neglected villas were restored and the road became bohemian and hip. Stephanie bought her cottage in 1990, saying Holloway Road was the cheapest place to buy a house. She has fond memories of the street and of the Swensson’s family — particularly father Pop Swensson’s birthdays, who lived in the same house until he was 108.
“They were just gorgeous people,” she recalls. “They were very energetic, very welcoming and always hospitable.”
The shops have now long since closed, and the Swensson’s are gone, only commemorated by their blue home. But many still feel an unshakable energy in the gully.
Chan, who once lived on the far end of Aro Street, says he would feel dizzy and unsettled in the Waimāpihi reserve. While mountain biking at night, he often felt he was being watched.
My flatmate Alana stopped walking through Waimāpihi reserve after experiencing repeated dizziness. What she dismissed as health complications was consequently only happening during her trips through the bush.
The Waimāpihi reserve is even rumoured to host coven-type ceremonies. My landlord was once warned by a friend who claimed to have seen a circle of people gathered around a pentagon. But others on the street who’ve seen it think it’s a gimmick.
Whilst the reign of the true Gully-ites is over, the road’s mystique remains. The ghouls and hauntings of Holloway Road may lie hidden beneath the surface, but there’s an unshakable atmosphere.
Every time I pass the Swensson house or the buttercup yellow former post office, I'm reminded of the history I stand on. The annual travelling cocktail party, the banjo troubadour who strolls the street at 10pm, and Bob's infamous parties reassure me that Holloway Road still has its magic.