Spooky: A-Z guide of Sydney ghosts sightings and hauntings
These are the apparitions that stalk Sydney. From drowned barefoot boys to a headless man in black, if you think your suburb is free or supernatural activity, think again. INTERACTIVE: IS YOUR SUBURB ON THE LIST?
NSW
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In 1932 a “ghost” dubbed the Redfern Spectre made headlines around the country.
The tale began to unfold in the first week of April after one Mrs McDowell, a resident of Ivy St, complained of mysterious noises and moans in her home.
So rattled was she by the sounds, she called the police.
News of the ghost began to spread like wildfire. The morning after her report, a milkman claimed he saw the ghost climbing a telegraph pole “with remarkable agility”. A second said he saw it on her roof. By the night of Sunday April 3, a crowd of 300 people had gathered in the street, drawn by reports the “spectre” was back.
It was a wild scene and in the excitement, three youths rushed inside to catch the spirit only to emerge white faced, reporting the sound of someone banging under the stairs. Police searched the property but not a soul was found.
Mrs McDowell moved her family out and the “ghost” was never heard from again.
The bizarre tale is one of Sydney’s best supernatural stories, some of which turned out to be pranks, others which still haunt us today. Here are some of the best.
ANNANDALE
With its gothic intricacies and gargoyles, The Abbey in Annandale was made for ghostly tales. Freemason John Young built it in 1881 to impress his wife, but she died before she ever saw it. Instead, it stood vacant for years until boarders moved in and stories of a woman in white began to circulate. In 1959, surgeon Geoffrey Lancelot Davis bought the house, and dark tales escalated. In 1972, Mrs Duane Davis told the Woman’s Weekly of the home’s spectral activity, saying her husband Geoffrey had seen the “white lady”. She even found him frozen in fear in the music room one night, unable to move, in the grip of “arms like ice”. There were other oddities, according to the family: doors and windows closed on their own, lights flicked on and off, temperatures fluctuated wildly. Francesca Davis, who grew up in The Abbey with her siblings, said all seven kids knew it was haunted. Sold in 2009 to Michael Hogan and Ann Sherry, they are yet to confirm any sightings.
BELLA VISTA FARM HOUSE
Dating back to 1830s, the homestead has been the site of several deaths, according to paranormal investigators who claim to have made contact with spirits at the site.
Peta Banks, who runs APPI Ghost Hunts and Tours, said visitors on her tours had reported devices failing, dramatic drops in temperature and the presence of several spirits including a Georgina Phillips, an orphan who died of tuberculosis while living with the Pearce family.
“She’s seen in hallway in peoples’ peripheral vision and has been heard when staff are opening up, her footsteps have been heard running around upstairs,” she said.
CABRAMATTA
The tale of the headless ghost said to haunt the railway line near Cabramatta station has been doing the rounds since 1904, when a newspaper reported residents were “noticeably excited” by the appearance of the apparition. Described as “a headless man in black clothes”, local children refused to pass near the spot after dark, and today, the tale persists. Many attribute the spirit to a mysterious skeleton found in scrub near the station, and reported by a Sydney newspaper, on Friday the 13th, 1880.
CAMDEN
The historic Studley Park House has a tale of a haunting dating back to 1909. At the time, Studley Park was the Camden Grammar School, where student Ray Blackstone, 14, drowned in the dam. According to legend, the boy was laid out for weeks in the cellar before being buried. After the tragedy, reports swirled of strange sounds, lights switching on and off, clocks moving, and wet footprints in the house. Even during WWII when the Australian Defence Force took over the property, servicemen were said to refuse to enter the cellar. In 2001, the house featured in paranormal reality show Scream Test, where one contestant was so unsettled by unexplained voices, they left the competition. The property is now a private residence and the new owners say there are no ghosts. Please leave them alone!
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CAMPBELLTOWN
In October 1929, a newspaper report surfaced of a ghost seen walking through water by a family passing through Campbelltown at dusk. It wasn’t the first sighting. The apparition had been bobbing up around that particular creek for years, ever since the suspicious disappearance of ex-convict turned farmer Frederick Fisher in 1826. Four months after he vanished, a local stumbled white-faced into a Campbelltown pub claiming to have seen his ghost, sitting on the bridge in Queen St, pointing at a paddock near the creek. Shortly after, Fisher’s remains were found in that paddock. Police had called in an Aboriginal tracker named Gilbert from Liverpool, who tasted water in the marshy land and proclaimed ‘white fellow’s fat there’. Gilbert led police to the grave which was on George Worrall’s land. Worrall who had coveted Fisher’s land, denied guilt until he was standing at the gallows and confessed
CASULA
On the banks of the Georges River is Casula Powerhouse, a place said to be rife with paranormal activity. Once a pleasure ground for swimmers and picnickers, countless souls drowned in the river, and more died in industrial accidents when it became a power station in 1950. Decommissioned in 1976, mediums have picked up on several presences including a young girl, called Alma, who drowned in 1902. Peta Banks, of APPI Ghost Hunts and Tours, says there are three prominent spirits at the site: Alma, believed to be the spirit of a little girl drowned in 1902; an elderly man seen on the ground floor; and a malevolent presence known as Crispy. “Crispy is a burns victim, he’s described as looking like Freddy Kruger or the older version of Voldermort, and he’s quite evil.”
READ MORE: A PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS AT CASULA POWERHOUSE
CENTRAL STATION
Far below Central Station lies platforms 26 and 27 — the ‘ghost platforms’ where no passengers or trains are found but voices are heard in the darkness. Built on one of Sydney’s earliest burial grounds, the Devonshire Street cemetery, the bodies were exhumed to build the transport hub in 1901. The platforms were never needed and were boarded up, but workmen visiting the tunnels have reported the sounds of children’s voices, as have the occasional tour groups exploring the tunnels. Some say there are souls trapped there, the spirits of bodies unsuccessfully exhumed, their echoes heard on the strange wind that drifts through the tunnels.
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CAMPERDOWN
About 18,000 souls were laid to rest in the once elegant graveyard, but haunting stories began to surface as it fell into a state of wildness in the 1900s. The most common was of convict-turned hospital matron Bathsheba Ghost said to wander the graveyard tending to her flock. But it’s a tale of star-crossed lovers which earned a mention on Wikipedia, despite no proof of the relationship ever emerging. The story goes that Hannah Watson, wife of harbour master Captain Thomas Watson, was having an affair with a Captain John Steane. When her husband discovered their infidelity, he cursed the pair and in 1857, they both died months apart. Buried in the cemetery, it’s claimed Hannah’s ghost emerges from her tomb, drifting towards her lover’s.
READ MORE: DARK SECRETS OF CAMPERDOWN CEMETERY
COCKATOO ISLAND
With a layered history of brutality, death and misadventure, it’s little wonder the former convict prison, reform school and industrial shipyard is rife with ghost stories. Tour guide Ross Downie reckons the place is haunted as hell, and he’s witnessed first-hand bizarre paranormal activity he can’t explain: “I’ve seen too much, so I do have to say I’m a believer.”
From a little girl in white thought to be Caroline ‘Minnie’ Mann, the daughter of superintendent Gother Kerr Mann who lived on the island with his wife and 12 children from 1864-1870, to a dark presence shadowing visitors in the turbine shop, there’s even a violent poltergeist in Biloela House, where a contractor was pushed out of the room.
READ ROSS DOWNIE’S FULL ACCOUNT OF COCKATOO ISLAND’S GHOSTS
DARLINGHURST
The skull and crossbones that adorned the morgue entrance have been chipped away and the gallows where 79 people died are gone. But the ghosts of Darlinghurst Gaol remain, according to those who have worked there over the years. Dubbed “Starvinghurst’ for its paltry rations and horrific conditions, from 1841 to 1914, the imposing sandstone building was a wretched place to be a prisoner. Outside the main gate in Forbes St, thousands of Sydneysiders watched inmates like murderer John Knatchbull (1844) and Captain Moonlite (1880) swing from the gallows. By 1921, the East Sydney TAFE and National Art School moved in and stories of strange happenings trickled out. Three rooms were said to be particularly haunted, including a classroom where prisoners were held before hanging. Then there’s the strange noises, banging on blackboards, flickering lights and terrible smells that persist even after cleaning.
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DURAL
Built in 1856, The Pines at Dural was the residence of the Roughley family, whose story began in Australia in 1817 when Joseph Roughley and his son James were convicted of theft and given a seven-year sentence of transportation. Generations lived in the cottage until the final resident, Gordon ‘Clive’ Roughley, died in 2002. He sold the property to The Hills Shire Council for $1 so that it would be maintained as a living history of colonial life in the Hills.
APPI’s Peta Banks “loves” the home because she says it’s so active. She said several visitors have experienced a sensation of being “grabbed” by invisible hands on the stairs and from under beds.
EMU PLAINS
The Arms of Australia Inn Museum has at least four resident spirits wandering the properties, says Craig Werner, president of the Nepean Historical Society, who runs Lantern Tours at the site. “One is related to a little boy called Nikolai who died in the barn after being kicked in the head,” he said. The accident was believed to have occurred around the 1840s and visitors had snapped photos of strange orbs of light in the barn at night. There’s also a little girl called Elizabeth, who was drowned in a well by her uncle, and is known to run around the building closing doors and turning lights on off. Built in two sections, the first in 1826, the inn became an important staging post for travellers going from Sydney through the Blue Mountains to the goldfields. Mr Werner said there were plenty of odd occurrences, from clothing being moved in rooms in the museum to lights turning on and off and unexplained noises. Psychics who’ve visited have told staff there’s also a woman shot by a bushranger and a murdered Aboriginal boy roaming the property.
FAIRFIELD
In the heart of Fairfield, is a collection of the district’s oldest buildings, some dating back to 1836, including an old slab hut, blacksmith’s forge, school room and an early council chambers. Fairfield City Museum and Gallery’s is a surprise hub for paranormal energy according to several mediums who’ve visited the site. Museum co-ordinator Carmel Aiello telling APPI that visitors had seen a moustached man dressed in old fashioned garments hovering in one of the buildings. Ghost investigator Peet Banks says she’s had plenty of “interesting” experiences at the village, rates it as one of Sydney’s hidden haunted gems.
GLADESVILLE
Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum was Sydney’s first purpose-built asylum, opened in 1838 on the shores of the Parramatta River. It quickly earned a reputation as a house of horrors, with a newspaper describing it in 1849 as a place of “cruel and unremitted torture”. Later it became Gladesville Hospital until it closed in 1993, but the melancholy of the asylum never left, especially near the unmarked grave where 1228 psychiatric patients are buried. Visitors have reported hearing cries and moans in the buildings, and one security guard reportedly refused to return after claiming to see a deformed man with blazing red eyes.
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HAWKESBURY
If you don’t believe in ghosts, the abandoned lunatic asylum on Peat Island in the Hawkesbury may change your mind. It did for maintenance workers Steve Heggs and Sam Bolth, who having experienced enough “freaky” incidents in the asylum, aren’t sure what’s real anymore. The horrors of the island’s past have been hidden away for 107 years when the “lunatic asylum” first opened, originally as a place to dump alcoholics and later, as asylum for men who over the decades, revealed it’s sordid history of abuse, torture and unexplained deaths. So notorious is the site for paranormal activity that researchers recently camped outside the buildings to observe owls fled the area after seeing lights flickering inside.
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KINGSGROVE
It ticks all the boxes as an urban legend but is it true? Likely not. The tale goes that a derelict scout hall in Shackel Avenue has been haunted since the late 1990s when a man was killed and buried underneath it. The stories been circulating on ghostly forums for years with claims of a one-armed man sighted wandering the building.
LIVERPOOL
Liverpool TAFE, originally built in 1813 as a convict hospital, then a state hospital, a morgue and an asylum, has been the source of unsettling paranormal reports for years. APPI paranormal investigator Peta Banks said she rarely saw ‘ghost’ figures but she had seen a man, just legs and big boots, inside Liverpool TAFE. Visitors have heard voices, cries of ‘no, no’ as well as the spectre of an old man raking under the tree at the front entry. Beauty teacher Rattana Long reported seeing a man’s reflection who wasn’t in the room.
“And a lot of the class were outside one night having a cigarette break when they saw smoke come out of the classroom. I was the only one in here and I wasn’t smoking.”
“I don’t stay back at night anymore … when the students leave, so do I.”
READ MORE: THE FBI INVESTIGATOR AND GHOSTS AT LIVERPOOL TAFE
MACQUARIE FIELDS
Late at night, when it’s still and the last trains have passed, “faint crying” can apparently be heard on the breeze at Macquarie Fields station. Ghost hunters say it’s quiet at first but soon becomes much louder, sometimes accompanied by the terrifying spectre of a teenage girl in bloodstained dancing clothes. The story behind the haunted tales isn’t clear, however, there have been several deaths on the tracks, including the harrowing suicide in July 1906 of Emily Hay Georgeson. Emily, however, was 42 years. A frequent patient of the Rippon Grange Mental Asylum, Wahroonga, she escaped the care of her nurse and threw herself in front of a train at the station. She was cut to pieces in front of horrified bystanders.
MANLY
As a quarantine station for bubonic plague, smallpox, typhoid and Spanish influenza, it’s little wonder the Q Station is said to be haunted.
More than 13,000 people were quarantined there during its life, at least 570 people died and 240 are buried in graves facing south towards the city they never reached.
Stories of haunting phenomena date back more than a century, when nurses on night shift reported seeing a ghostly Chinese man with ponytails wandering the wards.
Ghost tour guide Debra told the Manly Daily during a tour that the final, miserable days and hours for disease victims contributed to the negative energy that haunted the site.
“There’s so many souls trapped here,” she said. “I can tell you from my own experiences … there is definitely something going on.”
NEWTOWN
Hidden in Newtown’s backstreets is a 19th-century corner hotel with a ghost fond of red wine — in fact $27 bottles of red wine are its drop of choice at the Carlisle Castle Hotel. Peter Bradbury, licensee, turned to CCTV after noticing bottles and glasses falling to the floor with no one near them on two separate occasions. Bartenders had also reported unusual things “many times” including one who saw a wine glass fall off the rack and beer taps turning on.
The hotel was established before 1877, and in 1884 the body of a servant girl, Ellie Brennan, was found dead in her bed in the hotel, having killed herself with carbolic acid over a lover’s tiff. Is she the peeved ghost causing mischief?
OXFORD FALLS,
It’s the road no motorists wants to find themselves alone late at night. Wakehurst Parkway, a stretch that connects Seaforth to Narrabeen, has been the site of many tragic accidents and two spirits are said the stalk the road — an older woman in her 50s, and most famously, a young girl known as Kelly. Both are said to enter cars or appear in rear view mirrors.
The legend is so strong, a film crew even made a documentary about the story which was apparently so harrowing, several people became physically ill. Filmmaker Bianca Biasi, who made The Parkway Hauntings, said filming in Deep Creek Reserve was “terrifying”.
“We had a psychic medium with us and she described in detail that someone had been murdered there. All of a sudden the actors started behaving strangely. A couple started throwing up and we considered hospitalising one because it was so hard to calm her down.”
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PARRAMATTA
There’s no specific story that clings to Parramatta Jail, but its past as a brutal prison since 1842 has infused it with a foreboding energy. The jail itself is massive — six wings, multiple levels — and after so many unsettling occurrence, paranormal investigator Peta Banks is convinced it’s haunted. Since she’s hosted ghost tours at the jail, she’s been grabbed on the hand by an unseen presence, and had guests abruptly leave after visiting certain cells. And if the walls of the torture rooms below 6 Wing could talk, she’d probably never get another guest. “6 Wing was for the “bad buggers”. They’d throw them into a completely dark room with no light and throw 11 marbles in. They’d tell them they’d let them out once they found all 12.”
PICTON
The old town in Sydney’s south west has been ranked among the most haunted places to visit in Australia and among the spookiest parts is train tunnel opened in 1867. The site of many deaths including that of Emily Bollard, 51, who died in 1916 after she was struck by a train while walking home. Her body was found lying inside the tunnel’s northern end, both legs broken, one leg and arm almost severed. In the years that followed, reports were made of a woman acting strangely in the tunnel and many believe Emily still walks in the darkness. Visitors have reported seeing unexplained lights and shadows, strange gusts of wind, and occasionally the ghost of a girl who hanged herself at the entrance of the tunnel. Ghost hunters have become somewhat of a nuisance in recent years, so Picton Tunnel is now only open to the public on weekdays from 9am-2:30pm.
PROSPECT
St Bartholomew’s Cemetery contains the graves of many early settlers and in 2015, paranormal investigators claimed to have photographed one of its phantoms, or ‘anomalies’ on Halloween night. Four members of Sydney South West Paranormal Investigators team were near the grave when they heard a whining sound. Using a high spectrum camera, they took hundreds of images and the 209th frame captured the bizarre spectre. Tour guide and local historian Hazel Magann was unsure whether it’s a ghost or not, but told The Blacktown Advocate that there was something dark in that section of the gravesite. “I close down. I kept having horrendous feelings near where that photo was taken,’’ she said.
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ROZELLE
Built as the Callan Park Hospital for the Insane in 1878, the original hospital began life as a place of hope, where those suffering torments of the mind were treated with dignity. But overcrowding and underfunding would eventually turn into a place of abuse and degradation.
Many deaths had occurred over the decades, leading to constant reports of hauntings, especially in ward 18 where screams and moaning were heard. Several paranormal groups have investigated sightings of apparitions and voices in the chapel, as well as activity in the grounds. Mysterious figures have appeared in photographs, and visitors at night have been overwhelmed by eerie feelings and film crews have rejected filming there.
ST LEONARDS
There are stories of residual hauntings at Gore Hill, from roving spirits said to be those of children taken by the Spanish flu to a woman in black Victorian garb said to be mourning a child. Of Gore Hill’s 14,000 burials, the most famous — Saint Mary MacKillop — turned out to be temporary as her remains had to be removed in 1914 to a nearby chapel. “People would come along with their washed out jar of Vegemite and they’d take a little scoop of earth when they were visiting the grave,” says Daniel Phillips, who runs Sydney Ghost Tours. “Now one person is not going to make much of a difference, but you multiply this by thousands and the poor old Sisters of Saint Joseph were starting to be exhumed by stealth.”
THE ROCKS
The Russell Hotel is frequently listed among the world’s 10 most haunted hotels, thanks to a dead sailor said to haunt single female guests in Room 8. Guests have described seeing the seafarer in the room staring at them, while there’s been numerous reports of someone walking at night over creaky floorboards. When staff go to investigate the noise, there’s no-one there.
VILLAWOOD
Known as the The Meccano Set, there’s an old ghost story linked to the busy intersection at the boundary of Villawood, where the Hume Hwy and Woodville Rd meets. The story dates back to the 1860s when a pedlar was found murdered and mutilated at the junction. IN the decades after, a string of strange accidents occurred; horses bolted, coaches overturned and the apparition of man appeared, menacing travellers. There’s even a newspaper report of it chasing a buggy of men all the way back to Liverpool. While the story has now faded from memory, many locals say they were told tales of a ghost at the intersection as kids.
WATERLOO
On November 30, 1941, a curious headline appeared in The Sunday Telegraph.
‘Ghost plays shady trick on taxi driver’.
The story came a week after Mr Slater, a foundry worker, told the paper his 75-year-old mum haunted his home at 41 Lenton Pde Waterloo. Not only did she ring the doorbell at 4.30am several times a week, but his wife, his mate Roy Elliot and even a psychic investigator had witnessed her presence.
The bizarre tale didn’t end there, because a week later former taxi driver Mr Norma Atkin came forward to tell an even stranger story. He’d picked Mrs Slater’s ghost in his cab.
Mr Atkin told Telegraph that he was dropping off a fare on Lenton Pde early one morning when he heard a loud whistle.
“I saw a figure in white on the driving side. It gave me quite a shock. At first I thought it was a woman sleepwalking, but the next thing I knew the figure had opened the rear door of the cab and sat in the back,” he said.
“I asked where she wanted to go, but there, was no answer. I thought she might be deaf and repeated the question. Still no answer. I drove off towards Botany Road, near Redfern, and asked: ‘Where to from here?’ There was still no reply. I turned round and the cab was empty.”
Shaken Mr Atkin headed to Kings Cross for a strong cup of coffee.
“I did not mention my story to other people, as I thought they would laugh at me and ask what I had been drinking. I never believed in spirits before, but I certainly do now.”
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