Haunted by a ghostly tick-tock

In this week's Early Days, Ray Humphrys contemplates stories of a spirit of a clock locked inside a walls of an old home.

GHOSTLY: Australia's most haunted house near Junee NSW (above) was a long ways from the Ringing Plains homestead in Queensland. The mystery chimes in the old homestead at Irvingdale were never explained and those who heard them often wondered at their origins. Picture: Contributed

OLD haunted homes seem the last place anyone would want to live but it is only the people living in them who experience the mysterious occurrences.

There was one homestead in this area that was home to several families. Throughout their lives they would always remember the mystery-the chiming clock of Ringing Plains.

A young family returned from the west in the early 1930s to live in the old home.

The former tenant did warn them.

"Some funny things happen in that place," he said.

Nevertheless, Reg, Minnie and their family moved in and stayed for about three years. During their stay they heard it a number of times.

"There definitely was clock that used to strike in that house but nobody ever found it," Reg remembered.

"You could pick out the spot on the wall but you couldn't find anything to show where the sound came from."

"It was just one 'dong,' like a clock striking one. You could hear the sound fade away in the house."

After hearing it again Reg searched high and low. He went up in the ceilings and crawled under the house but there was nothing that could produce a noise like that.

The family continued to live in the "mystery house" and, after all, a chiming clock was far better to have than ghostly figures moving through the home.

Reg and Minnie finally left Ringing Plains to take up land of their own. Their occupancy was followed by Fred and Hetty who had a large family.

Reg told them about the chiming clock but Fred only laughed claiming such things didn't exist. They moved in and Hetty was the first to hear the ghostly clock. She related the experience.

"It was very real. I had my hands in the dough mixing bread. I nearly fell through the floor, but Fred would never believe it until he heard it himself."

Fred also felt he could find an explanation and searched the ceilings and under the house. One time they had visitors and they all heard it.

Hetty said she heard it a number of times and so did their children. Fred and Hetty moved on to another farm and others resided there.

The old home has been long demolished taking with it the mystery of the chiming clock of Ringing Plains.