Haunted Victoria: Flinders Street Station, Old Melbourne Goal, Como House, Princess Theatre
They are the Victorian landmarks with a sinister past where ghostly tales of death and misadventure haunt the living.
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They’re some of Victoria’s most well known landmarks and tourist destinations — and they all have a spooky past.
Whether its former residents of historic homesteads or ex-prisoners in some of our jails, many have suspected their spirits have never left and are been responsible for a few odd happenings.
Here’s some of the most well known spots in the city and beyond for alleged ghost sightings over the years.
Princes Theatre
One of the city’s oldest theatre venues also has its own ghost, as detailed by the State Library of Victoria.
Anatole Frederick Demidoff Baker, known by his stage name Federici, was playing Mephistopheles in Phantom Of The Opera on March 3, 1888, when he suffered a heart attack while being lowered through a trapdoor.
According to the library, he was seen to put out his hands and clutch the boards of the stage, just as he and another performer were going down.
He was pronounced dead in the green room 40 minutes later, but the audience and Melburnians didn’t know anything had gone wrong until the news was revealed two days later in The Argus newspaper.
Stagehands and actors reported strange happenings at the theatre in the following years, including “feeling something brushing past them in corridors”.
Others reported sightings of Federici, describing his ghost as “a tall figure of a good-looking man, in full evening dress, hair slightly greying at the temple, and of stylish appearance”.
The theatre has since kept a time-honoured tradition of saving one seat for Federici in the dress circle on the opening night of every production.
Point Cook Homestead
Walking tours have long been running at the former home of Thomas Chirnside and his family, with claims the property is full of paranormal activity.
The Scotsman arrived in Australia in 1839 and built the historic mansion, which also featured a horse stables that became home to Melbourne Cup winners.
Mr Chirnside is said to still haunt the 10ha property along with several stablehands who died on site, and others on the beach.
According to visitor website AskMelbourne, visitors to the stables claim to have heard the galloping hoofs of retired racehorses.
Black Rock House
This council-owned property, built in 1856, once served as a holiday house for Victorian auditor general Charles Hotson Ebden.
It hosts ghost tours during winter, co-ordinated by Friends Of Black Rock House, who give guests details about the “more unusual occurrences” at the house.
While no ghost sightings have been officially confirmed, up to 13 ‘spirits’ are said to haunt the house, including a woman named ‘Annie’ in a back room near the living quarters.
According to State Library records, a group of women also once visited the caretaker of the house in 1910, and wanted to view it as they believed “the spirit of the late mistress haunted it, particularly the cellar”.
Flinders Street Station
Commuters at one of Melbourne’s most famous landmarks claim to have seen a ghostly figure after the death of a fisherman in the Yarra River more than 100 years ago.
Ernest Leahy drowned in a boating accident in 1902, with his body pulled from the Yarra as reported in The Argus on October 21.
Various Melbourne tourist sites claim Leahy, who has was nicknamed ‘George’, was spotted in ghost form holding a rod, reel and two paddles and staring at the river from a fence near platform 10.
These days, the station has 13 platforms including a disused one which is home to Arbory Bar.
Metro Trains confirmed it wasn’t aware of any official sightings of ‘George’ despite rumours circulating ever since Leahy’s death, and also checked in with Flinders Street’s longtime stationmaster George Panoussis following Leader’s inquiry.
“If this station could talk, I’m sure it would have countless tales to tell, but in my more than 30 years in the railways I’m not aware of any ghost sightings,” he said.
Hosier Lane
Not too far away from Flinders St, this modern day street art tourist attraction also has a spooky past.
In an interview with Lantern Ghost Tours’ Jacqui Travagilla, the City of Melbourne’s What’s On website claims visitors on its tours have felt “icy cold hands” from a Jack the Ripper suspect during their visits.
Others have claimed to have seen the silhouette of a man who “vanishes as soon as he is seen”.
Ms Travagilla said they believed the spooky spirit could be that of Frederick Bailey Deeming, who murdered his first wife and four children in the UK in 1891 before moving to Windsor in Melbourne.
He is one of dozens of shady characters suspected of being Jack the Ripper.
Old Melbourne Gaol
One of Melbourne’s most notorious landmarks is filled with dark and grizzly stories, with more than 130 inmates, including Ned Kelly, being hung there until it closed in 1924.
Naturally, many visitors have had a few odd experiences with rumours of ghostly former inmates.
In a feature with TimeOut Melbourne in 2021, tour guide Aurora said Cell 17 was one of the epicentres of unusual activity and one of the spookiest for visitors.
He said he’d seen some visitors bolt out of the cell in tears claiming someone was gripping their throat, while others reported being touched and scratched, having something tug at their clothes and the floor rocking back and forth.
Despite all the ghostly claims, in its plug for its ghost tours on its website, the gaol states: “None have been proven, yet.”
Como House
This well-known wedding venue in Melbourne’s leafy inner east was built in 1847 and was home to high-society stalwarts, the Armytage family.
According to the National Trust, along with being well known among Melbourne’s elite, the family thew many elegant dances, dinners and receptions at the venue — and many of their rooms and the family’s heirlooms have been preserved.
But showing they’ve never left, there have been reported ghostly sightings of two family members.
Wedding planners have been said to have once spotted seven-year-old Ethel, who died in the home in 1872 of diphtheria.
Her mother Carolyn has also reportedly been sighted after she died of a heart attack in an upstairs room in 1909.
Ghost tours have been previously staged at the venue by the National Trust, however, they appear to no longer be running.
Ararat’s Old Gaol and Lunatic Asylum - J Ward
Originally a prison in the gold rush era, its buildings were acquired in the 1880s by the old lunacy department as temporary housing for the criminally insane.
According to a story by tour operators on its website, the former asylum could be haunted by George Fiddimont, who died in 1886 after suffering a massive heart attack and falling down a flight of stairs.
One of the guides was on a tour when he and the group heard a person walking up and down a staircase while in the underground kitchen.
The guide called out a number of times, opened a door, but no one was there.
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