Haunted Adelaide Plains South Australia

 

Haunted Adelaide Plains
South Australia

On dark and stormy nights, a phantom walks Port Wakefield Road, hitchhiking to Adelaide. He wears a long, Australian Air Force jacket, with a RAAF uniform underneath. He hitches a ride, and then vanishes from the car…who is this ghost that has been reported since the 1940s? Is he the only ghost walking Port Wakefield Road, and what other spectres are seen in the area?In Haunted Adelaide Plains: South Australia, award-winning historian and paranormal investigator, Allen Tiller investigates this ghost story, and others from the region; including the ghost of a soldier in Mallala, phantoms in Alma, Balaklava, Dublin, Pinery, and Two Wells… and, an unusual sighting of Princess Diana in Mallala at the time of her death.

Allen Tiller focuses his research on true ghost stories drawn from historical sources, interviews, witness statements and his own paranormal investigations. Allen Tiller is a former volunteer at the Mallala Museum and the Adelaide Plains Historical Committee. His family are pioneers in the region and can be linked to two hauntings on the Adelaide Plains, which Allen discusses in this book.
Haunted Adelaide Plains: South Australia, investigates the paranormal through fact-checked historical information that adds authenticity to some stories and debunks others; valuing evidence-based stories over psychic hearsay and giving an unbiased, factual account of local hauntings on the Adelaide Plains.

Buy it here:

Haunted Adelaide Plains

 

A Shot of Spirits. Ep 15: New Dublin Hotel - South Australia

 It has long been alleged that the New Dublin Hotel, in Dublin, South Australia is haunted! From the ghost of a woman with a pram to a former bartender, many people claim to have interacted with the spirits of the bar (pun intended).
 I spoke about this haunting at a presentation at the Two Wells Library in 2021. The story will be covered in more detail in a future publication.

 Mallala Museum - Hidden Secrets

<start transcript>

In 1877, the Mallala Milling Company was floated with a capital investment of ten thousand pounds. A site in the township was chosen and James Martin and Co of Gawler were contracted to build all the machinery and carpentry for the new Mallala Mill.
The foundation stone was laid on 26 July 1878 by Miss M.A. Chivell, who was presented with a silver trowel for her efforts.[1]

The Mill was opened by Mr W. Cavanagh M.P. on Tuesday 18 March 1879.

The completed building was three stories tall, built from hammer-dressed limestone, with brick quoins and cement dressings.  At the rear was a shed that contained a Cornish boiler manufactured at James Martin and Co in Gawler. The boiler drove a horizontal engine of 22 horsepower, with a flywheel weighing three tons.
 The mill consisted of three pairs of French burr stones, each being 3 feet and 8 inches in diameter.[2]

On 31 August 1880, just after 12 noon, the boiler at the Mallala Mill exploded. Mr Armfield, the Mills engineer had just been to check on the boiler and returned to the engine room when the accident happened. The boiler exploded, blowing down half of the boiler-house walls and bursting numerous pipes. The explosion blew the roof of the engine and boiler room houses and shattered the base of the chimney stack. Luckily, no one lost their lives, as most workers had gone to lunch, however, Mr Armfield received some head injuries from flying debris

When the mill closed, the inner workings, the steam engine and grinder were removed and used at the Blyth Mill.[3] Mathew Henry East held the title in 1909, and in 1933, East Brothers and Co took possession

In 1947 the 50-foot-tall chimney, made from over 6000 bricks, that had been built in 1878 was demolished. It had been declared unsafe and a risk to the buildings nearby

The Mallala and Districts Historical committee was formed in 1968, and in 1970, the Adelaide Plains Council bought Mallala Flour Mill to be used as a museum. The museum holds a comprehensive military display of local involvement, farming machinery, an REO Speedwagon Fire Engine, displays of old typewriters, toys, blacksmith forge, and Mr Temby’s penny-farthing, which was ridden in the Adelaide Xmas Pageant by Lance Tiller. The Long Plains Schoolroom has many displays, and recently, in 2021, a new upstairs gallery was opened and dedicated to long term volunteer, the late Margaret Tiller.

The Mallala Museum is considered one of the finest local heritage museums in South Australia. It is open every Sunday afternoon from 2pm until 4:30pm and is run by volunteers. <end transcript>

© 2021 Allen Tiller


[1] 'Laying the Foundation Stone of Mallala Flour Mill', Yorke's Peninsula Advertiser, (6 August 1878), p. 4.

[2] 'Opening of the Mallala Mill.', South Australian Register, (20 March 1879), p. 1.

[3] 1947 'Out Among The People', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954), 15 April, p. 4. , viewed 14 Aug 2021, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article30522934

 A Haunting at the Two Wells Hotel.

 

Two Wells Hotel 2021 - Allen Tiller

The Two Wells Hotel opened on 23 April 1860 as the Two Wells Inn. The original hotel was on the Mallala Road. John Cowan, the owner, decided to build a new hotel to better catch passing traffic. In 1867, Cowan applied to transfer his license to the new building, he also changed the name from ‘Inn’ to ‘Hotel’.[1] This new hotel was much larger than the original.
  The new building had 18 rooms – nine up and nine down – and a cellar. The dining room also functioned as a courthouse.  It was realised close to completion that no provision had been made for an internal staircase to the upper floor, so an outside staircase had to be constructed until an extension was built to allow for the internal staircase.[2] It was officially opened in 1868.

Ghosts

It was alleged in The Advertiser newspaper in January 2016 that the ghost of the Two Wells Hotel is a Sea Captain named George.  Publicans, Rodney, and Loretta Wilmshurst who owned the hotel from 1999 claimed that their granddaughter, Krystal Wilmshurst had seen the ghost when she was a child.
  Loretta stated that: “On one occasion she (Krystal) came down the staircase, stood at the doorway and said the monster had gone to bed,’’ Loretta recalled.
 “She took her dad around through the original front bar to the key room and said, ‘he lives in there!’.”
 Krystal referred to the ghosts as a monster, and claimed at times, he would not let her sleep. She witnessed him on one occasion in the shower. He was wearing a hat and a cloak, but he had no feet!

Loretta had not witnessed the apparition but had felt him. She also had an experience; “One Saturday afternoon I was going up the staircase and heard the girls’ soft toys being thrown around the room,’’ she said. “No one was home. I didn’t go up.”

Another witness to the ghostly goings-on was Pam Sisken who was employed as the cleaner. Sisken often worked after hours in the hotel on her own. On one occasion she claimed “strange things” started happening to the alcohol. “I can still see the brandy and whisky bottle in the auto pourer bubbling up, fizzing up with bubbles,’’ she said. “I wasn’t upset. I thought he’s (George) up and about.’’

George has also been heard going up and down the stairs. It was claimed by one witness that George was fond of the downstairs cool room, and this is where he was mostly sensed. A former publican claimed that this was the room that George had lived in while alive, and that George was unhappy as it had been turned into the cool room.

A variation on the identification of George was published by Gordon de L. Marshall in his book Ghosts and Hauntings of South Australia. In this version, George is the son of a former publican who was killed in a war, having half his face blown off.[3]

Further muddying the identification of George is a former publican who claimed the ghost is that of his son. Identified only as a ‘Bruce’ (possibly Bruce Hart, but unconfirmed). This publican claimed that a photo of his son was continually thrown down, and this was the way in which George was trying to communicate with his father.[4]

 It is claimed in this version of the ghosts habits, that George is blamed for an upstairs shower that turns on of its own volition. George is also blamed for mysterious goings-on in the toilet, with Toilet doors opening and closing by themselves, toilet paper being strewn throughout the room and hand dryers operating of their own volition.
  George has been blamed for three front bar fridge doors opening at the same time. On another occasion six people watched a port keg tap turn on by itself, and then port pour all the over the floor; none of the witnesses were close enough to have turned the tap on.[5]

© 2021 Allen Tiller


[1] 'Bench of Magistrates', The Express and Telegraph, (10 September 1867), p. 2. (LATE EDITION.)

[2] Williams, Bet & Williams, Les, & Kranz, David, Two Wells: then and now: a history of the Hundred of Port Gawler, (Mawson Lakes, S. Aust, 1991), p. 30.

[3] Gordon de L. Marshall, Ghosts and Hauntings of South Australia, (Jannali, NSW, 2012), p. 278

[4] Ibid.

[5] Williams, Bet, Two Wells: then and now, p.31.

 Barabba

Barabba was a township that sat between Hamley Bridge and Mallala on the Adelaide Plains. It was settled circa 1860, with Mr Henry Hobhouse Turton considered the first settler in the area.
Originally the section of Barraba where the school and town sits was called Aliceburgh, named for Governor William Jervois' daughter Alice.
This section of the town was settled by the McCabes, Hallion, and Roberts Families.
The Barabba primitive church opened in 1877 with its final service held in 1967.
Barabba post office operated from 1877 until 1971 from the Barabba School.
The church has long since been demolished, and the schoolhouse was destroyed during the Pinery bushfires in 2015.
#Barabba #history #SouthAustralia