Gold rush era ghost stories of Bendigo’s Shamrock Hotel

The stately halls of Bendigo’s historic Shamrock Hotel are said to be haunted with tales of murder and tragedy.

Soula Raven and David Nesbitt of Paranormal Adventures Australia.

A woman draped in pearls, her hands clad in dainty gloves walks down a luxuriously carpeted hallway, the sound of clinking champagne glasses accompanying her.

A “well-to-do” lady, she’s a well-known socialite who loves nights of loud music and dancing deep into the night and is seen often by staff and patrons of the Shamrock Hotel.

But there’s one problem with her being spotted regularly on nights out in 2025.

She was brutally murdered in the 1960s.

Shamrock Hotel, Bendigo at night. Picture: Gianni Francis.

In Bendigo’s city centre, the halls of the grand Gold Rush-era hotel are said to be haunted.

Paranormal investigator Soula Raven says investigations have revealed the unnamed socialite was killed by some men and buried at the Bendigo cemetery.

Shamrock Hotel, Bendigo. Picture: Gianni Francis.

They just haven’t been able to identify who she was in life ... or who her killers were.

“We’re just trying to figure out ‘who killed you, where are you, can we find out who you are?’,” Soula says.

But the anonymous socialite is just one ghost haunting the historic pub.

Another is Alexander Warren, a businessman who came to Bendigo to buy some pigs in March of 1888.

He was chatting up a lady in the bar of the Shamrock when he suddenly dropped dead.

Female staff members working in the bar have over the years reported a ghostly figure accompanied by a pinch on the bum.

Soula Raven, director of Paranormal Adventures Australia. Picture: Gianni Francis

They believe it’s the wily old man who was “known for his love of the ladies”.

Beyond the bar and bistro, most of the activity occurs on the notorious abandoned fourth floor.

A long hallway on the haunted fourth floor of the Shamrock Hotel, Bendigo. Picture: Paranormal Adventures Australia.

The noise from the bar below is cut off suddenly as the door creaks closed and the atmosphere palpably changes.

Closed to the public for 105 years, the long hallways are caked in dust and the darkness pooling in the corners of abandoned rooms seems unnaturally deep.

Dark stains in the walls and cracks in the plaster speak of a time long past and forgotten.

Alongside her colleagues David Nesbitt and Jess Vinter, Soula uses tools of paranormal investigation designed to detect activity from the great beyond attempt to unearth a darker, and often tragic, past.

(L-R) Ghost hunters David Nesbitt, Soula Raven and Jess Vinter with Paranormal Adventures Australia on the haunted fourth floor of the Shamrock Hotel in Bendigo. Picture: Gianni Francis.

In the tower room alone the ghost hunters have detected a lot of activity.

“When we’ve asked for any spirits to let us know they’re here we’ve had knocking on the window – we are four floors up so that can’t just happen,” Soula says.

“We’ve also heard something like running along the roof as well.”

One young woman named Sarah ended her life by jumping from the tower room to the street below, escaping her abusive husband after she was sold to him by her own father.

The investigators say her spirit still walks the halls.

In another tragedy of the 1800s, a mother and her young child burned alive in a fire.

Soula says they sometimes hear the voice of a child calling out for her mother.

“Sometimes people walk past and they say they smell something burning,” she says.

The criminal, the poor and the upper classes rubbed shoulders at a time when Bendigo was the richest city in the world at the height of the Gold Rush.

“A lot of miners stayed here back in the day,” Soula says.

“Unfortunately there was a lot of death here — miners killing each other in their sleep for their gold.”

Two model skeletons in the old managers room on the fourth floor of the Shamrock Hotel, Bendigo. Picture: Gianni Francis.

Ladies of the night plied their trade with the rough frontiersmen who often abused them, with one room notorious for something “dark” happening inside.

The spirit of one harlot named Mary is said to still walk the halls.

The paranormal detectives also report sightings of ghostly figures and the sound of giggling children running down the halls — likely orphans or children born out of wedlock, who, the investigators suspect, were subject to abuse and saw horrible things.

When fights would break out between the gold hunters, or drunk bar patrons began abusing the prostitutes, the other ladies of the night would hurry the children into a room to hide from the horrible acts outside.

The room where the spirits of children are said to be most active in the Shamrock Hotel. Picture: Gianni Francis.

“We don’t know what these children endured,” Soula says.

One particular room – likely where the children would hide – attracts the most activity, like music boxes playing their tunes in the dark while no one is present in the room, the ghosthunters say.

But if a man enters the room, their spirits appear to run and hide.

“We had one investigation in here where the children were scared of a gentleman named Steve,” Soula says.

They know he was a “nasty one”, but cannot glean more of his connection to the hotel, David adds.

Users of laudanum, a 19th century opioid were also patrons – with one man named George overdosing and dying in the communal bathtub.

A mannequin depicting "George", a man who overdosed on laudanum and died in the communal bathtub of the Shamrock's fourth floor.

The fourth floor eventually had to be closed to the public after several killings, police raids and general mayhem.

“It got so bad that is was shut down and nobody was allowed to be up here anymore, it caused so much trouble for the Shamrock,” Soula says.

It has since stood abandoned, slowly decaying over more than a century.

But even after its closure, the tales of horror continued.

Local rumours speak of Satan worshippers breaking into the fourth floor through the fire escape to perform “satanic rituals” and “witchcraft” after it was closed to the public.

“How much truth to that there is, we don’t know. But we have got on our machine – echo boxes – sometimes saying ‘witch’,” Soula says.

And the ghosthunters have felt some kind of force that sometimes tries to stop spirits from communicating.

A ouija board in the tower room of the Shamrock Hotel, Bendigo where satanic worshipers are said to have performed black magic. Picture: Gianni Francis.

Tales of demonic intervention at the hotel date back to the 1800s, with one notorious story of a Shamrock maid who threw herself from the hotel’s roof during an episode of “religious hysteria”.

In January of 1884, after a priest died of consumption while staying at the hotel, devoted churchgoer Jane O’Brien leapt 10m to the street below.

She told witnesses she saw a “demon girl” with two eyes that “burned like a furnace” telling her to jump off the roof.

“I have been a deceiver, and am an infidel, and they came for me, and they will

come for me again,” she is reported to have told a crowd of onlookers after her fall.

The woman was miraculously left unscathed her actions were chalked up to her “nervous and superstitious disposition”.

An ominous staircase rumours say Satan worshippers used to sneak into the fourth floor and perform black magic after it was closed to the public. Picture: Gianni Francis.

The Shamrock was made famous by the stories of prominent people patronising the institution over the years: Dame Nellie Melba, Princess Diana and Prince Charles, Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Robert Menzies, Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales have all graced its halls.

But the stories of thousands of patrons have also echoed down through the years.

Many will never be told again, but some may still be unearthed by the intrepid investigators.