Your guides to gruesome yarns, Wayde and Corrine Chalmers at the site of the victims of the notorious Conroy Gap murders. Photo: Sally Hopman.
The Yass Valley is known for many things: fine wool, great food and even better wine along with the richest of history. But did you know that something quite a bit darker was bringing people to the Southern Tablelands town in their droves – and it’s not pretty.
The Yass Valley History Centre, made up of a small group of dedicated volunteers from the Yass Valley Historical Society, has started Gruesome Graveside Yarns which take visitors to the town cemetery for a spook, sorry, look, around.
Tour guests wander through the cemetery with their guides who tell stories of people who have been murdered, died accidentally or come to some sort of unpleasant end. They are stories of tragedy and misfortune, but remain stories that are at the very fabric of the town’s history.
These new tours follow the success of the Yass Graveside Yarn tours last year which proved so successful, they earned a nod from the NSW Parliament. They also played a pivotal role in helping to fund the History Centre which relies mostly on donations to survive.
“What we found with the Graveside Yarn tours was that people who came on them often shared their stories … stories that filled gaps with what we knew or gave our archivists information they could use,” volunteer guide Corrine Chalmers said.
With her husband Wayde, the couple have just started running the Gruesome tours, designed they say, to show another side of the town’s history. With help from the Historic Centre’s archivists too, more of the valley’s colourful history is coming to the fore.
“These tours were sparked by comments made on the other tours,” Corrine said. “Some people just asked how people died. So we started researching them. We started with the death records, being sensitive of course to the fact many family members still lived here. For that reason, we don’t include anyone from about 1950 onwards.
“Yes we do use some poetic licence when we tell these stories, but it is always based on fact.”
Wayde said they had always been fascinated by an interesting name on one of the gravestones but knew little about it.
“It was something we noticed when we walked around but didn’t do anything about it. Then on one of the tours was a relative of this person who had been looking for the grave – and he ended up finding his grandparents’ graves as well.”
The relative was also able to provide the guides with information on the person buried, and why his name was so interesting. (All will be revealed on the tour).
Such tours, according to the Chalmerses, could only happen in a town like Yass with its rich history and descendants of many of the original families still living in the valley.
One of the oldest cemeteries in NSW, Yass has more than its share of gruesome yarns. Photo: Yass History Centre.
Corrine said it was impossible not to get emotional when talking about such deaths. “It does affect you because some of the stories are quite harrowing.”
One of the most heart-breaking of stories they tell is that of one splashed across newspapers of their day, the Conroy Gap murders when William Munday, who, after a dispute with his employers John and Bridget Conroy, killed them and three others in 1878. Munday’s victims are buried at Yass.
The Yass Courier of 14 April 1878 described it as “one of the most bloodthirsty murders it has been our lot to record”.
“No less than five persons in succession fell victim to the inhuman monster”, who it turned out, was a shepherd.
One more Gruesome Graveside Yarn tour has been scheduled for 2025, on Sunday 14 December at 6 pm. The walk takes about two hours and because of some of the confronting content, is restricted to adults only.
Bookings are essential through Trybooking
