Parramatta Gaol, Berrima Courthouse, Casula Powerhouse among haunted NSW places
Ghost sightings captured on camera and chilling voice recordings – NSW is full of paranormal activity, stretching from Parramatta to Gundagai. Here are some of the state’s most haunted spots.
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From suburban Sydney to prisons that have housed Australia’s most dangerous criminals, NSW is one haunted state.
Peta Banks, who works as a public servant, turns her skills to investigating the paranormal and you can often find her hosting ghost tours with Australian Paranormal Phenomenon Investigators at haunted locations including Parramatta Gaol, which she says is the scariest place in Sydney.
She joins other supernatural sleuths who share their eerie experiences with us.
St Bartholomew’s Prospect
St Bartholomew’s Cemetery at Prospect recently reopened to cater for Sydney’s growing demand for burial space but the spirits of the dead have never stopped living there.
Paranormal investigators have captured a slew of supernatural activities at the historic church and cemetery where explorer William Lawson is buried.
During a Halloween investigation in 2015, four members of a paranormal investigation team captured “a very large anomaly” which appeared to be a man running towards the group.
At the time tour guide and historian Hazel Magann revealed she always became terrified near that section.
“I close down. I kept having horrendous feelings near where that photo was taken,’’ she said.
A Scout group members once saw a short man – possibly “Penrith jockey” Thomas James Willis, born in 1834 – follow her when she walked towards the M4.
Willis’ mother is buried under the tree where the ghost was captured but Magann believed his spirit was there because of his daughter Emily who died in 1863 when she was just three years old.
A paranormal investigator, who asked not to be named, says St Bart’s was “probably the most insane” when it came to Sydney hauntings.
“There’s a woman in white going through the carpark and then she just disappears,’’ she said.
“Every now and again we’d catch a glimpse of her going in and out of the tombstone.”
Witnesses recalled a little girl who “absolutely bolted” to the M4.
“We ran after her and she was gone,’’ the investigator said.
“It was almost like she was tormenting us.’’
A friendly spirit, believed to be John Pond, was captured on camera in 2007.
His dark shadow and Abraham Lincoln-like appearance reportedly roams near the fence and the street named in his honour.
The Parramatta-born man married Isabella Newis at St Bart’s on November 1, 1882, taught there, was a grave digger, a church warden and lived nearby. It seems he still has a presence, 72 years after his death aged 92.
But not all ghosts are well behaved.
Much paranormal activity has been recorded around the gravesite of former sea captain Benjamin Hallen, who has laid to rest at St Bart’s since 1846.
About the year 2000, a man became unconscious just minutes after dancing on top of the vault and in 2015 a man was rushed to hospital after he passed out near the vault.
Ambulance have had to be called multiple times during ghost tours and investigators’ equipment experiences regular battery drains.
A fire destroyed the 148-year-old church in 1989.
Parramatta Gaol
Peta Banks says this former prison is the scariest place in Sydney.
She goes into each tour with a sceptical mind and tries to debunk any odd experiences. But there are some that still leave her perplexed.
On a warm November night in 2021, members of a tour group had gathered in a circle at the Governors building of the 223-year-old prison, which closed in 2011 after housing some of Australia’s most notorious criminals.
A metal lighter – something regarded as desirable to spirits – was used as a trigger and placed on the ground in the middle of the circle.
Only the light from the dull moon was filtering through the windows.
Over a brief five minutes, Ben, a correctional officer, spotted a shadow near the doorway where he sat – and the figure was soon visible to the group.
“He then advised he was freezing cold,’’ Banks said.
“This occurred in November, the weather was not cold at all, but touching his arm at that time, he was freezing.
“We were like ‘what are you talking about? It wasn’t boiling hot but it was bearable. And he said ‘no, feel my skin’, and his skin was freezing, and there were just this chain of events that happened all rather quickly.’’
Finally, the lighter had moved and was found next to Ben’s chair a metre from its original spot.
“We are wondering if that was an offering to someone who could’ve made an inmate’s life easier,’’ Banks said.
“We were using the Zippo lighter as a trigger object just because we know smoking in jails was a form of currency, and matches were really hard to come by, so a Zippo lighter would have been like the best thing they could have had.
“You freak out because, as you can imagine … that item physically moving, when we all know that nobody physically moved it, we just can’t explain it.’’
One spirit expressed his hostility in a message recorded on the electronic voice session, which picks up spirit voices you don’t hear at the time.
The group sat around a table in a wing where they requested the spirits to make noise in response to questions.
The electromagnetic testers activated and a motion sensor device started playing music.
“One of us asked ‘Do you want a chair? Come take a seat’,’’ Banks said.
“When we listened back, we heard a voice very clearly say ‘I don’t want your chair’.’’
In 2019, Deerubbin Aboriginal Land Council chief executive Stephen Wright – who was then the manager of the O’Connell St jail, said he could recount at least six experiences for which there was no logical explanation.
“We’ve had persistent (paranormal activity) where every time a couple of us would walk into the bottom of Wing 6, a certain door on the third floor would always bang,” he said.
Banks has also come across a spirit who likes to mimic leaders, such as herself.
As she was ready to leave the tour one night and called out to other group members about if the lights were off, she heard someone respond “down here they’re not’” only to find no one in the land of the living had spoken.
“We call it Loki because it likes to play with us, the trickster,’’ Banks said.
“A lot of stuff like that has happened – not to that extent – but a lot has happened where people see me walking into a wing and then I turn around and I’ll be standing right behind them.’’
Old Gundagai Gaol
Parramatta Gaol isn’t the only prison to harbour hauntings.
In one of NSW’s most famous towns of Gundagai, in the Riverina, is Old Gundagai Gaol.
Visitors have encountered a sinister presence hijacking their bodies especially after they visit the prison’s hospital.
“One of the things we have had happened repeatedly, probably from at least 10 attendees, is when they are in the infirmary, they will feel some kind of illness,’’ ghost tour guide Peta Banks said.
That includes complaints of a fever, feeling like they may vomit and sharp pains in the limbs for visitors who are not told what the building’s former use was when the tour began.
“If they do complain about an illness, we take them outside,’’ Banks said.
“Once they are outside, the illness or pain disappears and that is when we tell the guests that it was a hospital.’’
But if further proof of paranormal activity in the prison is needed, Banks can also offer photographic evidence.
A figure was snapped sitting next to a tour guide participant during a sensory deprivation experiment in which guests are blindfolded and wear headphones that play white noise.
“The theory is if you take away someone’s sight and hearing, their other senses will increase,’’ Banks explained of the parapsychology experiment.
On the night recently, a woman on the ghost tour entered the cell while others watched via a monitor when several noticed the person was not in the room alone.’
Stumped at what they were witnessing, the group saw what appeared to a child crouched down next to the blindfolded guest.
“The person in there had no idea they weren’t alone and freaked out when they saw the picture,’’ Banks said.
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre
This southwest Sydney cultural attraction is so haunted it prompted an artist to run away naked in the middle of painting his artwork.
While the heritage-listed facility now houses a 322-seat theatre and six galleries, its former function as a coal-fired power station meant it was a far more dangerous place where workers were killed on the job and it’s believed some of their spirits haunt the site.
Before the power station era, on the cusp of the 20th century up until the 1940s, the site was used as a pleasure ground and filled with picnickers along the banks of the Georges River, where children would learn to swim.
But drownings would also sadly occur and one of those casualties was Alma Davies, whose ghost reportedly haunts the site.
Ghost tour host Peta Banks said the girl’s spirit was not attached to the power station, leading people to believe she’s linked to one of the drownings.
“She’s been seen by artists who stay there for their residency, she’s been seen by my guests, she’s been seen by my staff and the staff of the power station, and she’s normally seen either chasing a ball or carrying a ball,’’ Banks said.
“They describe the same physical features, so some of them in their peripheral, will see a little figure running.’’
During research, a newspaper article surfaced about a little girl called Alma Josephine Davies who drowned chasing a ball in 1901 or the early 1900s.
“The ball fell in the water and she tripped and fell in,’’ Banks said.
One of the most terrifying stories about Alma’s apparition came from an artist who was a guest on one of Banks’ tours.
“He never mentioned this to me before I’d even talked about the little girl,’’ Banks recalled.
The resident artist was working inside the museum a night before his exhibition was due to open when he heard a ball towards him.
“It came bouncing down the hallway and then it stopped at his wheelchair and he bent down to look at it to see what it was – and then he heard a little girl giggling,’’ Banks said.
“And he looked up, couldn’t see anyone, looked back down, the ball was gone.
“He said he’s never been so scared in his life.’’
The sighting happened in the 1990s and the artist did not share it with Banks until he joined one of her tours six years ago because he felt she was not going to think he a “lunatic”.
“And then my jaw just dropped and said ‘I haven’t even gotten to the part about the little girl yet’,’’ she said.
Another artist’s supernatural experience was as scary as it was embarrassing.
“He worked best in the early hours of the morning so he was working away,’’ Banks said.
“He liked to work in the nude, and it didn’t matter because he was the only one there.
“So he was working away and something so horrible happened to him – paranormal wise – that he fled the building at three in the morning and refused to go back in and had to use the public phone from the station to call someone to come and get him.’’
Along with Alma, the spirits of World War II soldiers, who trained at the engineers’ barracks, are believed to linger near Casula railway station.
Banks explained how many soldiers would be so drunk after they left the station and fall on the tracks and die.
Suicides were also common at the station because it was unmanned and without a gate.
Macquarie Fields train station
A more notoriously haunted train station than Casula is Macquarie Fields, a couple of stops southwest where screams reportedly belong to Emily Hay Georgeson.
The dressmaker took her life more than 100 years ago at Macquarie Fields train station but her tortured soul and blood-soaked garb still make their presence felt in the 21st century.
The 43 year old was reportedly suffering severe depression when she and her nurse caught a train from Ingleburn to Glenfield in July 1906 so Emily could visit a friend.
She was on day release and was under the supervision of the nurse.
On her way back, Emily jumped off the train at Macquarie Fields train station and hid but, as the train was heading from Goulburn to Sydney, she decided to take her own life, and laid out on the tracks.
Commuters and those with an appetite for the supernatural have given accounts of seeing a girl in a white dress.
“ … They hear her screaming and some have seen a woman in a white dress – or who they consider a girl because they saw her from a distance – where she’s sobbing at the station and she’s covered in blood,’’ a paranormal investigator, who did not wish to be named, said.
Growing media coverage has prompted ghost hunters to witness the abnormalities in the wee hours of the morning long after commuters have deserted the station and more can be heard.
However, ghost tour host Peta Banks is not so sure.
“I could have been wrong but it’s reported once and then everyone jumps on it.
“I think just as much happens during the day as it does at night but we aren’t attuned to it, we aren’t expecting it so we just overlook it.’’
Berrima Courthouse
There’s some talkative spirits at Berrima Courthouse, which sits in the heart of the picturesque Southern Highlands village – and where supernatural activity is rife.
One voice recording might even be from the ghost of an authoritative judge who ordered participants on a ghost tour to “all rise”, leaving them stunned when they heard the male voice in 2022.
Peta Banks finds the courthouse a hotbed of paranormal activity, most likely because it sits next to Berrima Gaol where executions were common.
“There’s lots of appearances, like people standing behind people, shadow figures in the corner – just everything you could imagine with a haunted place, Berrima’s got it,’’ Banks said.
One night in 2018, an off-duty policeman started feeling ill.
“He was petrified – absolutely petrified – and I just personally thought the fact that he was a police officer gave it more credence as well,’’ Banks said.
“He started just talking about how his neck was hurting.’’
Her colleague started recording the physical change that left everyone agog.
His neck was turning red and welts were coming up.
“And it would happen to a police officer because it was in the male holding cell,’’ Banks opined.
Staff have also “had so many weird” occurrences.
“They know for a fact if they have trouble unlocking the door when they go to open it up, it means something paranormal’s going to happen,’’ she said.
“If it’s difficult to unlock the door it means it’s going to be an active night and it always is.’’
Banks says countless accounts have been told about doors.
“There’s a voice that tells you to close the door,’’ she said.
“People think it’s the person in front of them saying ‘close the door’ so they’ll close the door behind them but nobody has said it and that’s happened repeatedly – beyond count.’’
She said spirits also answered questions by making banging sounds.
Things also get pretty dizzy in the jail’s holding cells, where Banks says “there’s a feeling the floor’s tilting and moving’’.
“And the only thing I can put that down to is that the wood that they used to make these holding cells was actually used from shipwrecks or decommissioned ships and reused the same wood.’’
One night, a worker entered the courtroom, which is full of mannequins (which “is already creepy to begin with”) and found the dummies’ wigs piled up on the floor.
Not thinking too much of it, the woman thought a colleague who worked there the night before had removed the wigs from the mannequins and fitted them on their heads once again.
But when she asked staff about it, everyone was clueless and asked why they would take the wigs off mannequins.
It seems the untidy spooks also like to dump more than fake hair.
One employee also found books on a pile of the floor in the museum’s gift shop.
“The top book was open to a certain page and I’ve always been annoyed that they didn’t pay attention to what book it was and what page it was – they just put it back on the shelves,’’ Banks said.
She noted “there’s always a lady in white” with hauntings and it was no different at the gift shop where a figure of that description has been spotted “walking” around.
Macquarie Fields home
It’s a house typical of many homes Aussies grow up in – red brick in the heart of suburbia, not out of place from the rest of the homes in southwest Sydney’s Macquarie Fields.
But the facade belies the extraordinarily unsettling incidents haunting the revolving door of tenants who live in the public housing property where religious blessings and multiple cleanings failed to work.
Twelve years ago, a tenant and paranormal investigator, who wished to remain anonymous, was forced to flee with her young sons.
One was constantly haunted by a boy with red eyes and the other slept with a crucifix under his bed that did little to repel the hauntings.
A friend’s child also saw a boy with red eyes.
“At night, during the day, it didn’t matter,’’ the woman said.
Adults visiting would not finish their cup of tea.
“They fled,’’ she said.
“It was just the feeling in the house and I used to get really, really sick – like really sick.
“I was out for 16 weeks at one stage and I was diagnosed with glandular fever and Ross River virus.’’
The hauntings were not just restricted to the occupants. Visitors also witnessed the terror.
An electrician was pushed out of a manhole and refused to return to the property.
The house owner spent two hours outside consoling him.
“When he left, he said ‘no way – I’m not coming back.’’
She had to convince his boss over the phone that he was not drunk when he fell from the manhole that sparked his swift exit.
Psychics visiting the house were just as quick to depart, telling the owner they could not help.
“I lived in a house and I couldn’t explain what was going on,’’ the former tenant said.
“We actually still keep an eye on it.’’
The house has had no tenants that lasted more than a year and you can watch the chaos.
“For public housing this is really high turnover.’’
‘’You can watch the destruction happen. All of a sudden the grass is filled with rubbish … it’s this cycle.
“They take off and new tenants come in. It’s really strange to watch.’’
“The only thing I could do was move.
“I can handle most things but this was horrific.’’
Monte Cristo Homestead, Junee
Most children are scared of “the bogeyman” but very few can say they have grown up in Australia’s most haunted house, Monte Cristo Homestead, like Lawrence Ryan.
The 52 year old and his four older sisters spent decades witnessing “thousands” of disturbing incidents at Monte, aka “the little house of horrors” which is also regarded as one of the world’s most haunted abodes.
Sightings have prompted guests on tours to release bloodcurdling screams and some to fall into epileptic seizures, dogs to bark uncontrollably, phantoms to appear and animals to die.
A little over a year ago, after the first tour post Covid lockdown, a nerve-crippled woman was sitting in a dining room after a tour which Ryan has run for the past 14 years.
“I noticed she was a bit fidgety but then suddenly she spun around and set into the most God-awful scream you’ve ever heard in your life,’’ he recalled.
“Everyone on the table – all 15 people in the room – all started to jump. She spun around and put her hands up like she was protecting herself, like something was out to get her.’’
A friend grabbed her and with “the fear of God in her eyes’’ Ryan recalled how her hands curled over before she collapsed on the floor and went into a minute-long seizure.
“I thought she had a heart attack at first,’’ he said.
Just before she came out of her seizure she started growling like a dog.
“She said ‘I’ve been diagnosed with it and I’ve had it under control for two years and not had an incident.
“We did a bit of research on it and there’s things called psychic seizures and it’s brought on by sheer terror or fear.
“Just before it happened I saw something behind her like a silhouette or haze.’’
During a self-guided tour, a woman’s dog encountered a foreboding presence that held her from entering rooms upstairs multiple times.
Other guests have commented how they love seeing people in costumes wandering the grounds – except Ryan assured them no one donning top hats and long jackets was there in the middle of summer.
He recalls when his parents first moved into Monte and there was no electricity yet they witnessed the house illuminated in unexplained lights.
Elizabeth Crawley, who was the original owner of the house along with her husband Christoper, is believed to be the most dominant ghost of the 10 spirits lingering in the stately double-storey house which was built between 1876 and 1884.
She spent most time at the house and Ryan believes she can’t let go. After her husband died in 1910 she only left the property three times in 22 years.
It was even more difficult when her husband gave everything to his wife and left her in charge at the time – a very rare responsibility for that era.
“I think she actually ran the property better than her husband than ever did because she had the woman’s touch to it,’’ Ryan said.
“But it rubbed people up the wrong way because (they believed) no woman should have this much power and money but no indigenous woman should, because Mrs Crawley was part Aboriginal and she was shunned by the township of Junee.’’
Ryan often catches apparitions in his periphery but has been spared truly terrifying spectres upfront because he believes the spirits need him to look after their house and don’t want to scare him away.
Apart from the human connection, Ryan said the hauntings stem from the fact the house was built on quartz crystal, regarded as an accelerator to connect with spirits in the medium world.
His house nearby is also built on the same crystal and is haunted.
His mum Olive still lives at Monte Cristo along with staff. His dad died in 2014.
“My dad’s been seen, my mum says that she often sees my dad just standing there in the doorway, just seeing what she’s up to,’’ Ryan said.
Jenolan Caves
The enchanting caves are most famous for their awe-inspiring beauty but many believe the 340-million-year old chambers are also home to spirits haunting the underworld.
More than a decade ago, a Sydney doctoral student who had some photos taken of her in the caves got quite the shock when she found two ghostly apparitions in the images when they were printed.
Rachael Hutchesson’s friend Damian Kerr took the snaps, with the second photo appearing to have a face of a man or woman smiling at the camera.
In April 2009, Hutchesson said: “More strikingly, is the image of a little girl on my left, with an old fashioned bow and long black hair and wearing old fashioned clothes, slightly higher (in the frame) with her back towards the camera but her head slightly turned towards me …. You can even see the detail in her ear.’’
More baffling was the fact there were no children on the tour.
Perhaps the girl was part of a group known as the “laughing children” whose spirits linger in the caves, 80km from the Blue Mountains.
The group is known to inhabit the Water Cavern.
Picton
Many experience things they can’t explain but few are lucky enough to have photographic evidence of ghost sightings.
But while on a ghost tour at St Mark’s Cemetery at Picton in January 2010, a family was left with quite the startling souvenir.
After developing the image she snapped Renee English, noticed two children were present – despite no youngsters being at the cemetery during the tour.
“I wasn’t a believer in ghosts but now I’m intrigued,’’ the Port Macquarie woman said.
Local legend has it the two children are David Shaw and Blanche Moon, who died 60 years apart.
Blanche was crushed to death in 1886 when a pile of sleepers that she and several children were playing on slipped.
David was the son of a minister who died in 1946 from polio.
Picton is dubbed as Australia’s most haunted town and is home to the Redbank Range Tunnel, also known as the Mushroom Tunnel.
One of the reported ghosts is Emily Bollard, a woman who was hit and killed by a train coming from Thirlmere in 1916 while taking a shortcut through the tunnel to visit her brother.
She lived near the railway line and was a single woman aged in her 50s.
Jenny Davies, who used to conduct tours, said Emily was very hands on with participants.
“She likes to move among the participants and loves to touch their hair and body, particularly their arms and legs,” she said.
“Those on the tour often say that they’ve also felt a cold wind blowing through the tunnel.”
The ghosts of Jenny Dixon Beach, Central Coast
One of the Central Coast’s most famous supernatural stories centres on the hitchhiking ghost with flowing hair who is often spotted at Wilfred Barrett Drive between Magenta and Noraville.
Many believe it is the ghost of a murdered female who appears in the form of a young girl in a white dress hitching along a lonely stretch of the road.
It is believed the girl was heading home from work in the 1970s, pulled into a car, viciously attacked and raped by five youths.
She was found barely alive at Jenny Dixon Beach but did not survive her harrowing injuries.
No one was ever charged with her death, but it is believed the four or five youths died under mysterious and bizarre circumstances.
WATCH: GHOSTS OF THE CENTRAL COAST
Decades later, more than 300 police reports of a hitchhiking ghost on Wilfred Barrett Drive have been received.
But for some witnesses their encounter has been beyond eerie – many claim they have picked her up. She enters the car, chats a little but vanishes by the time the car reaches Noraville Cemetery.
In 2014, friends Julie Baker and Kaye Davison recalled how they were adamant they saw the
hitchhiking girl in 2000 when they were driving from Gorokan to The Entrance.
They noticed her beautiful handkerchief dress and decided to pull over when they noticed a “car full of fellows” nearby.
But when Julie and Kaye slowed down, the ghost disappeared.
Jenny Dixon Beach could have more than one haunted soul, as a group of four 12-year-old boys discovered in 1973 when they set up camp there with a large bonfire.
One boy saw a woman dressed in a long flowing dress, similar to the fashion of the 1800s.
Her arms were outstretched and the group began throwing sticks at her, which they claimed passed right through her.
The terrified boys ran back up the stairs to the carpark. When they looked again they saw her standing halfway along the stairs. They bolted home as quickly as they could.
Jenny Dixon Beach was named after a coal schooner Janet Dixon that was swept ashore in treacherous conditions.
The story goes that a woman lost her young son when he was swept overboard and the ghostly mother is pleading with people to help find him.
Wakehurst Parkway
Wilfred Barrett Drive isn’t the only haunted road in NSW.
The heavily-used Wakehurst Parkway on the northern beaches is believed to be the nation’s most haunted road where countless sightings of ghosts including a Scottish nun and a young female known as Kelly have been spotted.
The road connects Seaforth to Narrabeen and encompasses Deep Creek Reserve – infamous for historic murders and body dumping.
They include the killing of Stephen Dempsey with a bow and arrow in August 1994 at the reserve before his body was dismembered and put in a freezer.
In March 1995, 21 year-old Frances Tizzone’s partly decomposed body was found dumped metres from the Parkway at Frenchs Forest after she had been strangled by her ex.
In July 1963, eight-year-old Graeme Thorne was taken from his home in Bondi and later found murdered in a vacant allotment in Seaforth. His school case was found in bushland on Wakehurst Parkway.
To this day, drivers report their windscreen wipers halting, car doors lock by themselves and switched-off radios suddenly ramping up.
Motorists have reported seeing Kelly on the side of the road at night and suddenly find her inside the vehicle. She then quickly disappears.
Kelly, who reportedly haunts the Oxford Falls end of the road, is said to have died on the road in the 1970s and psychic Mary Loughland says it’s because she met a tragic end.
Bilgola Plateau’s Samantha Fisher was only a toddler in 1998 but two decades later recalled her mother driving along the road when, despite her perfect health, inexplicably passed out at the wheel.
A 2017 story in the Manly Daily about the hauntings prompted readers to share their stories about spooky encounters with Kelly and the nun, who is also believed to have died on Wakehurst Parkway in the 1960s.
Brad North of Frenchs Forest said he saw the nun’s ghost on a rainy night in May 2016 when he was driving home from work at Manly.
“As I drove over the small rise just before the 80km/h sign, I saw a female on the opposite side of the road,’’ he said.
“I slowed down and as I got closer I realised it was a ghostly white apparition of a female dressed in an old-style uniform. I sped up and as I looked in the rear view mirror the apparition had vanished. I got home and woke my partner to tell her I had seen a ghost and realised it was the nun who haunts Wakehurst Parkway.”
Nick (surname withheld) said seeing Kelly in the mid 1990s was the scariest thing he had ever witnessed.
He was with mates returning from Manly about 2am when they spotted her standing in the middle of the road and drove straight through her.
“I honestly thought I had hit someone,’’ he said.
“I slammed on the brakes and we all looked back and she was just standing there looking at us.’’
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