Where to get spooked at haunted SA pubs this Halloween – from the city and northern suburbs to country hotels
Hold on to your pint, resident ghosts at our historic pubs make South Australia one of the most haunted places in Australia. Here’s where you might get a fright night this Halloween.
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If you want to find a ghost, South Australia’s most historic pubs are a good place to start, according to Adelaide’s leading paranormal investigators.
The state’s watering holes are littered with tales of lingering spirits and legends of former publicans who can’t bear to leave behind their earthly haunts.
And the true believers will tell you their sightings have nothing to do with the amber fluid consumed at the front bar.
Adelaide ghost hunter Alison Oborn, of Haunted Horizons, said there were many theories why ghosts were often associated with old pubs.
“Before we had refrigeration, bodies were often stored in the basement of hotels as it was cool, so they became makeshift morgues,” the paranormal investigator said.
“(But for others) their local pub (is) their social life, their happy place … maybe some patrons want to stay in that happy place.”
SA-based Ghost Crime Tours paranormal investigator David Hogg agreed opinions on apparitions varied.
“(It’s thought) some are people who have died suddenly and don’t know they are dead, sometimes people might have unfinished business … some just don’t want to leave and pass on,” Mr Hogg said.
Whatever the reason,blogger and paranormal investigator, former SA girl Amy Waine, believes the state’s rich history and old buildings make it one of “the most haunted regions of Australia”.
“The spirits that live in pubs and hotels aren’t necessarily unique to other types of locations but are interesting because they have the opportunity to interact with lots of different people … … each pub seems to have its own unique folklore, legends and resident ghost,” the Amy Crypt’s blogger told the Sunday Mail.
Here are 13 favourite hotel haunts:
1. The Mt Torrens Hotel, Adelaide Hills
“We have two ghosts here, George and Mary, who are both super friendly,” publican Angie Lo-Faro explains as a matter of fact.
“George was one of the earliest settlers and a major pastoralist in the area who built this property … you can feel his presence, I get a pressure on my body, goosebumps, a bit of a cold feeling but it is not a negative feeling,” she said.
“For me it is calming, when my staff are here by themselves they say they just feel someone is looking out for them.
“Mary was a trailblazer as a female publican and ran the pub for 30 years, finishing up in 1922 – she is a bit of a joker and likes to move things around in the kitchen.”
2. Grand Hotel, Millicent
There are several ghosts associated with the Grand Hotel in Millicent in the state’s southeast, including a “grumpy, old cigar-smoking man”, a perfume-wearing woman and a little girl.
Venue manager Leandra Worrell, who has been at the hotel the past 12 years, said rather than big things, it was “unexplainable, unusual little things”,
This includes, mysterious music, the strong smell of perfume and the sense of having someone behind you, even touching you, when no one is there.
“We lovingly call the (perfume) ghost Mary because back in 1914 there was a publican called Samuel Purvis and his wife, Mary, passed away in Adelaide and he brought her back here and stored her in the basement until she could be buried,” she said.
There have been reported sightings too of a little girl wearing a long gown on the steps near the kitchen.
3. The Gumeracha Hotel, Gumeracha.
When publican Amanda Warren took over the Gumeracha with husband Mark just over two years ago, she knew they were purchasing a pub with a resident ghost – Aggie, the wife of a former publican.
“The story is, Aggie loved women and children but liked to play tricks on men,” she said.
“Someone told me recently how she was at the bar when a glass came out, sort of hovered and smashed to the ground … there was a group who saw and they weren’t that drunk!”
4. The Gungellan Hotel, Freeling
Helen Hatch has run the Freeling pub – which featured in the McLeod’s Daughters’ series – for the past seven and a half years and is now used to “weird – never scary or horrible – things” happening.
This includes player-less poker machines going off and beer cans rolling from the fridge and stopping at her feet.
“One particular morning I was sitting in my office, the chef was in the kitchen and we heard an almighty bang, we ran out into the hotel and all the ash in the fireplace from the night before had been emptied into a perfect circle onto the carpet – there was no one else in the hotel,” she said.
5. The Exeter Hotel, CBD
The legend of the ghost of the 170-year-old Exeter Hotel in Rundle St is well known.
“The story is, it is the ghost of Mrs Gwendolene Joy Josephs, a former publican who was stabbed in the kitchen by her younger, jilted lover – she was 56 and he was 30,” co-owner Dan Boundy said.
While he has never seen the ghost in his 20 years at the hotel, he admits to sometimes leaving a coffee out for her.
“There have been a few staff over the years who swear they have felt her presence,” he said.
6. The Ambassador’s Hotel, CBD
Built in 1881, the Ambassador’s Hotel on King William St has its fair share of ghost stories.
“When we were doing up the old cable lift, which is pretty much the oldest in Adelaide, the phone lines were disconnected to allow for the work but the phone would just ring,” co-owner Kane Bafile said.
“You hear different stories, (a former housekeeper) swore she was pulled backwards out of her room into the hallway by her hips while making a bed but no one was there … it is just bizarre little things.”
7. North Kapunda Hotel, Kapunda
According to paranormal investigator David Hogg, North Kapunda Hotel is not only this state’s most haunted pub but the nation’s.
“Several different ghosts are regularly seen there, the main one is a little girl called Sarah who is often seen upstairs and makes herself known, she especially likes women and motherly figures … nobody knows who she is or why she is there but the speculation is she was the daughter of a former working lady,” he said.
8. Port Admiral Hotel, Port Adelaide
The ghost of a man who committed suicide in the old cellar in the mid 1880s is said to haunt the Port Admirable Hotel.
Mr Hogg said he and his fellow GCT investigator Darren Bacchus even managed to capture the man on film while investigating when the hotel was recently renovated.
“You can see the full body image of someone down in the old cellar … there were three other people who were there that night who can attest to the fact there was no trickery,” he said.
9. Weeroona Hotel, Wallaroo
A heartbroken woman who committed suicide after losing her husband and child to typhoid fever is said to haunt room 11 at the hotel which opened in 1852 as the Globe Hotel.
Mark “Lumpy” Mattin, a volunteer at the Wallaroo Heritage and Nautical Museum, said Mrs Lydia Gully died after taking poison cyanide aged 31 on July 3, 1905.
“Room number 11 has a strange coldness to it and people report sheets being pulled off, noises in the night,” Mr Mattin said.
10. Cornucopia Hotel, Wallaroo
Built in 1862, this hotel is also said to be haunted by several ghosts who live in the upstairs area. Like many other hotels of its time, the basement was used as a morgue and Mr Mattin said it was the scene of many suicides.
11. Sir John Franklin Hotel (Kapunda)
Manager Donna Hilliard-Aldridge, who has been at the pub the past three years, said locals have provided her with accounts of sightings of several ghosts, including of a young child.
“I have heard more and more stories from the locals,” she said.
Paranormal investigator Amy Waine of Amy’s Crypt, said several deaths had occurred at the pub with staff and visitors long reporting weird activity – including seeing the “figure of a ghostly man in a top hat … and a ghostly woman make her way through the upstairs hallway.”
12. Golden Fleece, Gawler
Formerly known as the Old Spot, a framed picture adorns a downstairs wall of a mysterious photo believed to capture a ghostly old man and little girl, taken by Scott Pearson, a brother of a former publican.
Current co-manager Julie Heron said strange things, such as doors opening and shutting by themselves, continue to happen.
“And I have seen a little girl early in the morning out the front of the gaming room as well as a man in a top hat,” she said.
13. Old Spot Hotel, Salisbury.
Paranormal investigator Amy Waine of Amy’s Crypt has long been fascinated by the Old Spot Hotel on Main North Rd. “After speaking to some of the staff I learned it had a few ghost stories. there have been reports of a tall, dark, shadowy man hanging around the pub,” she said. “Staff have also had some weird activity in the front bar, heard footsteps upstairs when no one is around and have had that eerie feeling of being watched.”
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