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24 | FireFlyz
Kellas House & Kellie’s
Castle
The
smaller and completely dilapidated
of the two structures is “Kellas House”.
The remainder of the first home
consists of a covered walkway, an
open courtyard and parts of crumbling
walls. The second more grandiose and
extravagant structure was to be William
Kellie Smith’s “pièce de résistance”.
It is believed that because of Smith’s
fascination with the Hindu religion and
with India in particular, he incorporated
much of the architectural style of the
era into the latter structure.
Disturbing Goings-On
It
is much recorded that during
construction of the Castle, a mysterious
illness broke out amongst the
Madras workers from India. Fearing
the wrath of the gods and greatly
advised, William Kellie Smith had a
Mariamman temple built a little way
off the compound in the hopes “of
appeasing the wrath of the gods”. It was
later learned that the plague that was
affecting them was characterised as an
epidemic of the Spanish Flu.
Today, descendants of the Tamil
labourers brought over to Malaya to
work on the mansion still live nearby,
and if you are lucky, you might be
able to gather some stories from them
if you have a nose and tact for it!
Some believe the mansion has hidden
rooms and secret underground tunnels
… some believe that the master’s