IPSWICH GHOST TOURS

Explore Ipswich’s Spooky Secrets on a Guided Ghost Tour

Step into the shadows of Ipswich, a city steeped in gothic charm and haunted by its intriguing past. Join us on the original Haunted Ipswich CBD Ghost Tour, established in 1998 by renowned haunted historian Jack Sim, author of the Ghost Trails series. This two-hour guided tour through Ipswich’s historic city centre invites you to discover eerie tales and experience chilling encounters with the supernatural.

From the haunting secrets of the creepy Cribb House to the mystery under the police station, the woman in the attic window, and the watchful man in the museum, each step reveals another layer of Ipswich’s haunted history. Locals call it “spook spotting” – you’ll call it unforgettable!

Enhancing your ghostly adventure, our guides use tablets with large screens to display historic images and diagrams, bringing Ipswich’s haunted past vividly to life. To add an old-world touch, we provide atmospheric lanterns – usually one between two participants – to light your way along the tour route.

Whether you’re a curious local, an adventurous visitor or someone seeking an accessible experience, Ipswich Ghost Tours offers an engaging outing for those aged 10 and over. Perfect for school groups, seniors, clubs, corporate teams or anyone intrigued by urban legends and ghostly tales, our cemetery tours – two in Ipswich and a further six across Brisbane – promise an entertaining and spine-tingling look into the city's rich history.

In this audio guide, we provide you a teaser of some of the ghostly stories. To discover more you’ll need to join an Ipswich Ghost Tour!

The Old Ipswich Courthouse and The Baby in the Well

Your ghostly adventure begins at the Old Ipswich Courthouse, a formidable sandstone structure standing at the corner of East and Roderick Streets. As you approach, the building’s rugged, ancient facade commands attention, its weathered walls steeped in history and shadowed by tales of justice – and injustice. The courthouse, a solemn relic of Ipswich’s early days, exudes an air of foreboding, perfectly setting the tone for your journey into the city’s haunted past.

Imagine yourself standing in the presence of a building designed back when Ipswich was still part of New South Wales. Construction was completed just before Queensland became its own state in December 1859. The courthouse has borne witness to the passage of time, from Ipswich’s early years, when it was known as Limestone, to its bustling growth in the 1850s, when its first rudimentary courthouse and lockup soon became insufficient for the town’s burgeoning population.

Here, on 25 February 1890, the dark tale of The Baby in the Well reached its tragic conclusion, a crime so haunting that it birthed one of Ipswich’s most enduring ghost stories. The atmosphere grows heavier as you stand on the very ground where the story unfolds. Join the tour to learn more about this intriguing story.

The Haunted Sunday School – The Ghost of Joseph Hargreaves

Just across the road from the Old Ipswich Courthouse stands another historic building, now the Ipswich Antique Centre. Its grand brick facade, with arched windows and a stately roofline, hints at its former life as a Sunday school, where young students once gathered to learn about Christianity. Today, its quiet halls and creaking floors whisper of a presence from the past—a ghost said to belong to Joseph Hargreaves.

Joseph Hargreaves was a beloved figure, serving as the Sunday school superintendent for over three decades until his death in October 1928. His dedication is memorialised by a plaque on the wall, but his presence is said to linger beyond mere words of tribute. Visitors and staff alike have reported seeing Joseph’s ghost – a benign figure dressed in a shirt with armbands – near the internal staircase just inside the entrance. There’s nothing threatening about Joseph’s spirit; his love for the Sunday school seems to have tethered him to the place he cherished so dearly.

The Mystery of the Skulls – The Old Ipswich Police Station

Next to the courthouse stands the Old Ipswich Police Station on East Street, a formidable building that has been the site of countless tales of crime and punishment since its construction in 1903. For more than a century, this station served as the city’s centre of law enforcement, housing stables, cells and a bustling watchhouse where accused criminals awaited their fate.

As you stand before its weathered facade, imagine the sounds of the past: the clinking of chains, muffled shouts from the cells and the steady clop of horses entering and leaving the stables. The air carries an almost metallic chill, as though the building itself remembers the presence of the drunks, thieves and killers who were once held here.

But the darkest story of this station lies literally beneath it. Beneath the main structure is a massive, dungeon-like basement, the size of a small house. This dingy, damp space was once used to store old records, exhibits and lost property. Police officers who ventured down there often described an eerie, unnerving atmosphere.

At the end of the 20th century, as the station was being phased out, this basement became the centre of a chilling discovery – a mystery that transformed the old police station into a crime scene. The tale of what was found beneath the station, known as The Mystery of the Skulls, has become one of Ipswich’s most enigmatic ghost stories, which you can hear in full if you join the tour.

The Basement Mysteries – Evidence, Floods and a Forgotten Tunnel

As you linger near the Old Ipswich Police Station, another chilling tale from its shadowy past begs to be told, one that ties together a notorious murder, a natural disaster and rumours of a hidden tunnel. The station’s basement, already infamous for its dark and foreboding atmosphere, holds deeper secrets that intertwine history and legend.

In the late 19th century, the Gatton murders shocked Australia. On Boxing Day night in 1898, three members of the Murphy family were brutally killed in a case that remains unsolved to this day. Evidence from this horrific crime – specifically, dresses belonging to the two female victims – was reportedly stored in the station’s basement. Imagine the ghostly weight of these objects resting in the damp, oppressive air below, relics of a mystery that modern forensics might have unravelled but yet remains shrouded in uncertainty.

The basement itself was built over an underground spring. Heavy rains would often cause the spring to overflow, but during the catastrophic floods of 1974, the deluge was so overwhelming that the basement completely filled with water. The pressure became so great that a portion of the station’s wall had to be demolished to relieve it. This event, while practical in purpose, gave rise to whispers of an underground tunnel – an alleged connection between the police station and the old courthouse nearby.

Though official station blueprints from the Queensland Police Museum show no evidence of such a tunnel, some long-serving officers remain adamant it once existed. They recount tales of a wall in the courthouse that was bricked off, aligning suspiciously with the demolished section of the station. True or not, the story adds another layer to the station’s mystique, inviting visitors to imagine what secrets might still lie beneath their feet.

Accessibility

At Ipswich Ghost Tours, we are committed to providing an accessible and enjoyable experience for all participants on the Haunted Ipswich CBD Ghost Tour. Our staff has received some accessibility training and is dedicated to supporting all visitors and ensuring a positive experience. To help you plan your visit, here is detailed information about the tour’s accessibility features.

The start and end points of the tour are easily accessible via public transport. Visitors can catch a train or bus to Ipswich Station and meet us outside the Old Ipswich Courthouse, located at the corner of Roderick and East Streets – about a 10-minute walk. For those driving to the tour, public parking is available nearby at 39 Roderick Street, approximately 50 metres from the meeting point. The car park is also a convenient drop-off zone. 

This tour is wheelchair accessible and follows a route that utilises public footpaths and accessible road crossings. The entire tour is a 1.5-kilometre round trip conducted on foot, and requires the ability to stand unaided at each stop, which may make it unsuitable for people with limited mobility, particularly those reliant on mobility aids. Moreover, there are no seats or benches en route for resting.

The tour does not specifically include tactile ground surface indicators, Braille signage, or audible crossings, but these are present along the route where appropriate. We warmly welcome service dogs and registered companion animals. Grassy areas for dog toileting are available on footpaths during the first five stops of the tour. After that, the route continues along sealed concrete streets.

We are happy to accept Companion Cards.

It’s important to note that there are no bathroom facilities, including accessible bathrooms, anywhere along the tour route. Guests with sensory sensitivities should be aware that there are no quiet areas, sensory maps or social scripts. Guests with low vision should be aware that lighting is dim during evening hours.

While the Haunted Ipswich CBD Ghost Tour is our most accessible offering, our other tours are less suitable for guests with limited mobility and may present additional challenges for guests with other access needs. Our eight cemetery tours and the Haunted Brisbane CBD Ghost Tour are all potentially wheelchair-accessible but there are steep hills, uneven surfaces, narrow pathways, some exposed tree roots and grassed areas to navigate. There are no toilets or accessible toilets en route and guests) need to be able to walk up to 2.5 kilometres with no seating available for rests. The Charters Towers Ghost Walk is not wheelchair-accessible due to steps.

Coach tours are not wheelchair-accessible and require guests to use steep steps to enter the vehicle and walk up to 50 metres at each stop.

If you need further information to plan your visit, there is comprehensive accessibility information about all of our tours at https://ghosttoursaustralia.com.au/disability-access-companion-cards/. However, please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any additional questions by phone on 0401 666 441 or by email at bookings@historicaustralia.com.au. We look forward to welcoming you to Ipswich Ghost Tours!