l
ocae
l if
l
Spooks: The haunted Hawkesbury
by Penny Webb
From St Albans to St John
of God, the Hawkesbury and its
historical past seems to have created
somewhat of a mecca for spirits who
aren’t quite done with this world yet.
When locals get talking about
spooks and things that go bump in
the night, there is plenty of tales to
be told of ghostly experiences and
apparitions.
Janice Hart is the owner of
Hawkesbury Sightseeing Tours and
runs walking ghost tours of Windsor.
Local identity John Miller started the
walking tours 20 years ago before
Janice took over in 2007. Always
popular with locals and out-oftowners, it seems the ghosts don’t
Photo: Kathryn Johnston
mind what background or age the
curious are.
“I have taken people as young as
five years old on the tours. Kids are
so open and see all sorts of things.
They haven’t got closed minds like a
lot of adults do,” Janice says.
She recalls a story of a lady who
swears that a ghost from Windsor
followed their young grandsons who
were on the tour.
“She said one of her grandsons
attracted a ghost which seemed
to hang around their place for a
couple of months. The lady ended
up ‘driving’ it back to Windsor and
telling it to stay here!” says Janice.
Windsor seems to attract a lot of
supernatural action with the cellar
of the Macquarie Arms, the Tollhouse
and the Green Hills burial grounds
behind the Jolly Frog the busy spots.
“People on the tours report
seeing many spirit orbs particularly
in the burial grounds and of course,
many people tell me about unusual
experiences they have in the cellar at
the Macquarie Arms,” Janice explains.
“I remember being in there
leading one of the tours one night
and standing behind a lady who
We asked our Facebook and Instagram
followers to share some of their spooky local
experiences with us. Here’s a few to get your
hair standing on end!
“I worked at a local restaurant which was on
an old historical site. A little boy dressed in oldfashioned clothing was often seen in the kitchen
late at night. We used to end up chatting away to
him. That’s probably why he stayed!” Deb
“I lived in a house across the road from
Thompson Square in Windsor. My bedroom door
would regularly open and shut and saucepans
was video-ing the space. I
could see the screen on her
video and could see things
moving through the air on
the screen but there was
nothing visible in the room.”
While experiences with
the supernatural will get the
adrenalin running, Janice
hasn’t come across anything
too evil.
“I find the ghosts are
to my mind, pretty happy.
They’re mischievous more
than anything and like
moving things around,”
Janice says.
As for the increased level
of supernatural activity in
the Hawkesbury, compared
to other areas, while history
plays a factor, Janice has
another theory.
“Ghosts don’t always
stay where they ‘died’. Quite
often they return to where
they’ve been happiest.”
Considering it’s the
Janice Hart of Hawkesbury Sightseeing Tours in
beautiful Hawkesbury they
are returning to, that makes the cellar of the Macquarie Arms. Photo: Kathryn
Johnston
a whole lot of sense, no?
would end up on the floor of the kitchen. Turns
out it was the husband of the lady next door.
He’d died in the house and she’d moved next
door. He wasn’t happy about it!” Alan
“I work on the front desk of a hotel and had
a guest come running in to reception late one
night in her pyjama