Hauntings

I grew up in Blacktown, NSW, Australia. There were stories going around about a famous haunted house near by where I lived. Obviously there was no internet back then in the 70's & early 80's, but I found it interesting all the same. Many years later I started to do research on the subject. This is what I found out about Bungarribee House.

Bungarribee Homestead Site
The Bungarribee Homestead Site is a heritage-listed archaeological site at the location of the former Bungarribee Homestead. The site is located at Doonside Road, Doonside, City of Blacktown, Sydney New South Wales, Australia. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 8 December 2000. The traditional owners of Bungarribee estate were the Warrawarry group of the Darug people. Bungarribee, which can be loosely translated as "creek with cockatoos", is the name given to this area by traditional owners of the land.

Bungarribee Homestead was a historic house near Eastern Creek, New South Wales built for Colonel John Campbell between 1822 and 1828. [1] The homestead, which was acquired by the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) and demolished in 1957, gained a reputation for being "possibly Australia's most haunted house". [2] The former location of the homestead is now a heritage-listed archaeological site. [3]

History
Darug people and the Government Farm
An excerpt from the 1822 Colonial Secretary's Papers where mention is made of John Campbell. Excerpt from Clonial Secretary's Papers 1822.jpg
An excerpt from the 1822 Colonial Secretary's Papers where mention is made of John Campbell.

The traditional owners of Bungarribee estate were the Warrawarry group of the Darug people. [4] At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the land around what is now the Sydney suburb of Bungarribee was the site of considerable resistance by the Darug people towards European settlers. As a result of this, and in addition to the fatalities associated with a fatal outbreak of smallpox in the colony from around 1789, by the 1840s there were less than 300 Darug people reported to be living in the area. This equated to less than 10% of the estimated population at the time of European arrival. [1]

From 1802 until about 1815, the site of the Bungarribee estate was included within the 38,728 acres that made up the much larger Rooty Hill Government Farm. [5] Established by Governor Philip Gidley King to ensure the supply of good pasture for government herds, the farm remained unaltered from its natural state until 1810 when the-then Governor Lachlan Macquarie subdivided the farms into smaller parcels of land for free settlers. [1] Among these settlers was John Campbell of Argylshire, Scotland who is mentioned in the Colonial Secretary's Papers on 8 February 1822 as having taken possession of two thousand acres in the district of Prospect. The Land and Stock Muster of this same year records that Campbell's estate included "2000 acres at Parramatta with 130 acres cleared, 15 acres of wheat, 5 acres of barley and 2 acres of potatoes". [6]

The estate, in reality some distance from Parramatta, was bounded by Eastern Creek in the west, the existing Bungarribee Road in the north, what is now the Great Western Highway in the south, and the approximate line of Reservoir Road in the east. [1]
John Kingdon Cleeve

John Kingdon Cleeve (1803-1883) purchased Bungarribee in 1851. He died in 1883, with the property remaining part of his estate until sold off. Both father and son, served as trustees of St. Bartholomew's Church of England, Prospect, NSW, where members of this family are buried.
John Campbell's homestead
A view of the Bungarribee estate and homestead from 1858. Bungarribee, Fowles 1858.jpg
A view of the Bungarribee estate and homestead from 1858.

John Campbell, a major in the British Army and for whom Bungarribee Homestead was built, arrived in Sydney on 30 November 1821 with his wife, Annabella, and their nine children aboard a sailing ship called the Lusitania. [7] A son, Charles James Fox Campbell, became one of the first European settlers in Adelaide, South Australia. A great-grand grandson, Sir Walter Campbell, would later become a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland, Chancellor of the University of Queensland, and Governor of Queensland. [8]

No more than four months after their arrival a notice of caution appeared in the classifieds section of the Sydney Gazette , undersigned by Campbell and his neighbour Mr Robert Crawford, asking for the immediate removal of all cattle grazing on "the farms of Armady and Milton, situate on the East Creek, in the District of Prospect … having been lately marked off and located to [Campbell and Crawford]". [9]

Between March 1822 and July 1824 Campbell consolidated his landholdings and renamed the estate "Bungarribee", which at the time was understood to mean the burial place of an Aboriginal king. [10] This has subsequently been disproven and the word 'Bungarribee' is now thought to have been derived from two Darug words which together can be translated to mean 'creek with cockatoos' or 'creek with campsite'. [1]

The homestead, begun sometime around 1825 and incorporating into its servant's quarters an earlier cottage from 1822, was not completed in the lifetimes of either John or Annabella Campbell. In November 1826, it was reported that Annabella Campbell died at Bungarribee "after a severe indisposition". [11] Her death was followed less than twelve months later by that of her husband on 10 October 1827, also at the homestead. Both are buried in the grounds of the Old St John's Church in Parramatta. [12] At the time Campbell's estate was cleared in February 1828, Bungarribee still comprised 2,000 acres and was advertised as including a house "scarcely completed at Mr Campbell's death, [consisting] of a dining room and five bedrooms on the ground floor, and four small rooms in the upper storey". [13] The conical-roofed tower, a defining feature of the house in subsequent decades, was not completed at the time of the auction and was most likely finished during the ownership of the Icely family from October 1828 until May 1832. [14]
Modifications and decline
The drawing room at Bungarribee Homestead was located on the lower level of the cylindrical tower. It is pictured here only a few years before the house was demolished. Drawing Room Bungarribee.jpg
The drawing room at Bungarribee Homestead was located on the lower level of the cylindrical tower. It is pictured here only a few years before the house was demolished.

Among its more celebrated tenants were the British East India Company, who assembled horses on the property as remounts for troops in India, and also the pioneer and entrepreneur Benjamin Boyd. [15]

During the early years of the twentieth century, the-then owner Major J. J. Walters broke the estate into smaller parcels of land but remained in residence at the homestead until the 1920s. After the departure of the Major and his family in the early 1920s, the homestead was purchased by Charles W. Hopkins who spent "a large sum" on its restoration. [16] The date of the Hopkins restoration is unknown, however newspaper articles place these changes sometime between 1926 and 1928. In a description of the house from 1926, for instance, a journalist lamented that "neglect and changed conditions conspire with time to wreck this fine old home ... [and that] a more utilitarian age will soon demand its removal". [17] Within a few years, however, the homestead was reported to be "greatly altered; in fact practically re-built, although the old historical features have been preserved". [18]

There is no explanation as to why the house fell, once again, into a state of great disrepair between 1928 and 1935. Within only seven years of the celebrated Hopkins restoration, another journalist described the house as being "with its burden of a century's life, standing like a battered old man, calmly awaiting the call that will write 'finis' in its history". [1] The condition of the homestead only worsened during the Second World War, during which time the Commonwealth had resumed the property for military purposes, and by the 1950s Bungarribee had become "an isolated wreck" on the Doonside Road. [19] Considerable damage appears to have been done in early 1950, as recorded by students at the Sydney Technical College in December of that year. [10] By this time, much of the homestead's interior had been destroyed and the rubble footings were beginning to sink. Photographs taken by Barry Wollaston in 1954, now kept by Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, show that most of the windows had been broken and that the roof had begun to collapse.

O.T.C. (Overseas Telecommunication Commission) acquired the site. Local historian John Lawson offered to restore the homestead at his own expense but that offer was rejected by O.T.C. [20]

The homestead was demolished. A two-storey brick barn survived and was used by O.T.C. for storage until demolished in 1977 [1]
Architecture
The curvature of the homestead's famous tower is still visible in Bungarribee Homestead Heritage Park. Bungarribee Homestead footings.jpg
The curvature of the homestead's famous tower is still visible in Bungarribee Homestead Heritage Park.

The architect of Bungarribee Homestead remains unknown. In The Australian Colonial House, James Broadbent describes the homestead as having been "an L-shaped house with a drum at the junction of the two arms". The "drum", as Broadbent calls it, formed the base of a "circular conical-roofed tower with two single-storeyed verandahed wings radiating from it". [21] In Lost glories : a memorial to forgotten Australian buildings, David Latta states that the tower housed a drawing room on the ground floor and that the upper level was broken into a number of smaller rooms. Due to the curvature of the walls, interior doors in the drawing room were also curved and in this way reminiscent of the foyer in the now-also demolished The Vineyard House at Rydalmere. [5]

The overall impression of the homestead, from its carriageway at least, was that it was "one of the most charming houses built in early colonial New South Wales". A 1932 description of the homestead states that "all the ground floors opened upon stone flagged verandahs, originally draped with trailing roses and creepers. On two sides was an old garden with a carriage drive, and on one side in the midst of a little lawn stood a true lover's tryst, an old sundial". [22]

Recognised from some distance away by its tower, as well as being romanticised for its "simple and stately style of humble execution, of broad wall surfaces and long colonnaded verandahs", the house was in fact "a strange hybrid piece of geometry, a semi cylinder married to a triangular prism" that had been designed to some extent around the need for a staircase to its upper level. [23] Subtly Italianate in style, the house has been recognised as being among the earliest influences on the development of the cottage orné style in colonial Australian architecture.

The footings and floor surfaces of the homestead were unearthed during archaeological test excavations in June 2000. Prior to this, the site of the homestead had been marked by above ground remnants of the former garden including bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii), hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) and pencil pine (Cupressus sempervirens). [1] The site has been subsequently incorporated into a public reserve called Heritage Park within the Sydney suburb of Bungarribee. [24]

Ghosts

The homestead's reputation for being haunted first appeared in print in The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate in 1938. [25] In making reference to "the famous old legend of The Bungarribee Ghost", the article provides one of the only credible indications that the house had been afforded its sinister reputation quite some time prior to this date. Although the alleged supernatural happenings at Bungarribee Homestead were not properly reported until the time of its demolition, there does exist sufficient evidence of several deaths on site that would later form the basis of more well-known accounts of hauntings at the homestead. The most widely reported of these deaths, that of Major Frederick Hovenden in 1845, has more than likely given rise to a story about the ghost of a military officer who took his own life in the iconic Bungarribee tower room. Hovenden, who was indebted to creditors and had disappeared from Sydney as much as two years earlier, was found dead in a remote corner of the estate with the words "Died of Hunger" engraved on the peak of his travelling cap. [26] The tragic account of the man's death seems to have given rise to two far more elaborate tales about the house, both published by the Sydney Morning Herald in February 1957, in which "an officer suicided in a bedroom, bloodstaining the floor" and that of "the frightened boy ...[who] woke up in the night to feel cold hands gripping his throat" and after scooping up his clothes and rushing out of the house "walked miles for help before he could calm down". [2]

The Ghost Guide to Australia recognises Bungarribee Homestead as one of the most haunted in Australia.

Bungaribee – Australia’s Most Haunted House

While this is not strictly a tale of the Illawarra, it is quite close to home and a story far too great not to be told.

“Bungaribee” in Eastern Creek was built on sacred Aboriginal land by Major John Campbell in 1824. The beautiful homestead was built by convicts, many of whom died during the construction – and at least one of whom was murdered. As the house was nearing completion in 1826, Campbell’s wife Annabella became seriously ill and died. Less than a year after her death, John Campbell scratched his leg. The wound turned septic and Campbell perished painfully, coming to rest in a grave next to his wife’s. Following Campbell’s death, the house was auctioned and was bought by Thomas Icely who used the property as a horse stud. Enchanted by the beauty of the place, Icely brought his wife to live at the house. His wife claimed there was an evil prescence in the house, and they left less than 2 years later.
The beautiful homestead Bungarribee.

The beautiful homestead Bungaribee. Picture supplied by HTT – taken by Barry Wollaston is January 1954.

The property went on to change hands 7 more times. This was partly due to many natural tragedies, such as drought or flood, but moreso personal tragedies. After the deaths of the many convicts, an army officer shot himself in one of the small rooms in the round tower. When he was found, his body lay in the middle of a pool of blood. In 1837 a strong and healthy man (the brother of the owner Charles Smith) dropped dead at the house gates. The body of Major Frederick Hovenden was also discovered in the grounds. Fleeing creditors, the Major had sought refuge at Bungaribee house. By the 1860s, strange events were taking place. In the room where the officer shot himself, the bloodstain began to reappear on the floor. Frightened housemaids were repeatedly sent in to scrub the floor, but the stain would only reappear the next day. Throughout the night, rattling chains, muffled screams and scraping sounds could be heard coming from the tower. One family went on a short trip, leaving their 17 year old son behind to care for the home. The brave lad decided to spend his first night alone in the tower. Around midnight he woke in a panic, feeling clammy hands clasped around his neck. He screamed and fought off his unseen attacker, fleeing the house. He did not stop until he reached a large open field where he was discovered the next day by farm workers, crying and shivering. Years later, a 5 year old boy was put to bed in the tower room. In the middle of the night his parents were woken by his anguished screams. Upon entering the room, they discovered the child staring into a corner screeching “don’t let him touch me!”. Two women had similar experiences, one being grabbed on the arm, and the other feeling icy fingers wrap around her neck.
Two possible ghostly culprits have been seen: A young couple attending a ball held at Bungaribee saw a mysterious woman dressed in white peering out of the French windows. They realized they could see the verandah posts through the woman. In 1957 a letter was published in the Sydney Morning Herald from Mr Sydney McKeon who wrote: “some years ago I was employed by Robert Boulden who leased Bungaribee house and lands. The family had previously resided at Bungaribee but had moved away because of ghostly apparitions. Mrs Boulden (a strict Christian) related some of these tales: an old man in convict garb slowly descending the stairs to the tower room; an apparition of the same man sitting on a gate post, causing the horses to refuse to pass through the gates; a strange glow emanating from the tower; and the reappearing bloodstain.”
Due to neglect, around 1910, the property was divided up and sold off as small farms. In 1926 Mr. Charles Hopkins spent great deal of money restoring the property. During resorations, he uncovered a tomb covered by a large slab on stone in the garden, but workmen refused to open it, regardless of the ammount of money offered by Hopkins. The house enjoyed a brief revival, but when Hopkins departed in again fell into ruin. By 1950s thieves and vandals had completely destroyed the homestead, leaving only the shell of the building at the mercy of the elements.
All former glory forgotten. Picture supplied by Prospect Heritage Trust.

All former glory forgotten. Mathews, W. Bungarribee. c. 1955, src. John W. S. Moore.

In 1956 the Commonwealth Government bought what remained of the land as a site for Overseas Telecommunications Commission’s radio transmitting station. The man chosen to redesign the building, John Lawson, had a passion for history and was meticulous in restoring the old building to its former glory. Upon restoring the round tower, he discovered it was supported by two hollow columns. Inside these were the bones of hundreds of possums, who had fallen in and been unable to escape. He attributed this to the scratching and screaming sounds, and believed the “bloodstain” to be caused by their urine. He may have been right, but the stories remain, and Bungaribee remains notorious..

Information on this story was found in The Ghost Guide to Australia by Richard Davis. Other sources have informed me that this work is more fiction than fact, but it is still an interesting story about a beautiful building that deserves to be remembered for years to come.

I would say so. I haven't been in that area for a long time.

As a child each time we drove past the place I got a very weird sensation. The area which the homestead was on is surrounded by the poplar trees. Nothing has been built over the site. Although the is a park near the site and a new suburb was created in the surrounding area.

If you look on google maps, link. If you click on the location pin on the map it brings up the slide show that you can see the actual remains of the homestead. So much has changed in 50 years. It all used to be bush and farmland back in the day.