The ghost of banking past

According to Ellul, the history certainly gives the building an atmospheric feeling.

“When you check the vaults at the end of the day, there’s definitely a feeling there’s someone else there.”

“Occasionally you imagine voices or hear footsteps when you’re on your own. Sometimes you turn to speak to someone. But then there’s no-one there.

“Sometimes a door of one of our cubicles is closed, when you know it was left open. Things seem to move around – and aren’t always where you left them the previous day. It can be very eerie.”

Secure

Certainly if you wanted to choose a building to haunt, a Gothic vault would be a likely candidate. The building was once the most secure in Australia, designed by William Pitt who also designed Melbourne’s Government House and Stock Exchange building.

As Melbourne became wealthier following the discovery of gold, the Melbourne Safe Deposit Building was constructed. 

It was the ultimate secure haven to house the bounty of gold rush prospectors and wealthy families from the era of Marvellous Melbourne. It was also a place for local businesses and migrant families to use to secure their valuable and treasured possessions.

To protect the thousands of safety deposit boxes, a specially-designed vault was shipped from Liverpool, England with the rest of the building built around it.

The building’s strong room has walls a metre thick, made of undrillable steel. For further protection, as befitting a gothic structure, the building also has a moat underground to deter anyone thinking of tunnelling in.

Now, after nearly 130 years, any ghosts will have a new landlord. As part of wider moves to simplify its business, ANZ will stop offering this Safe Deposit Box service and will hand over the building to a secure storage expert to manage any unclaimed boxes.

As families come forward to claim boxes, Costa, Ellul and colleague Magro are seeing some interesting parts of Australian history come to light – including the Victorian gold rush.

For Magro this was evident in one particularly memorable deposit box.

“The box contained a cutlery set which looked like it was made entirely out of gold,” she said. “It was so heavy the box had a label advising people not to lift it on their own.”

“I had a customer come in and collect the contents of his safety deposit box recently and he wanted to show me what was inside before he left.”

“He dragged out this enormous gold nugget from the Ballarat gold fields, bigger than a grapefruit, and told me that was his retirement fund.”

Branch Manager Kevin Tunstall, who oversees ANZ’s iconic Gothic Branch next door and has been supervising the team as the facility is handed over, said the history is tangible.

“As customers come to collect their belongings, there have been tears as they are so attached to them,” he said.

“Those vaults are pretty creepy too and you definitely sense the presence of something down there. It feels like the ancestors of some of the box holders are keeping watch on what we are doing.”

For ANZ Archivist Peter Marinick, who looks after a wide range of artefacts from ANZ’s long history, the boxes are a source of fascination.

“One can only speculate as to what is contained in all the boxes but imagine if one of them was storing a letter with a long-forgotten secret. Maybe that’s why there’s a ghost – it’s trying to tell us something.”

James Wilson is a bluenotes contributor