Is J Ward, Old Ararat Gaol haunted?
Australia Reported haunting level 3 of 5
What actually happened
Henry Morgan was hanged at the gaol in 1884 for the murder of 10-year-old Margaret Nolan, one of the executions carried out on the site.
The history
Built to the Pentonville design between 1859 and 1863, Ararat Gaol took its first inmates in 1861, closed as a gaol in 1886 and in 1887 became J Ward, the Victorian Lunacy Department's ward for the criminally insane, until it was decommissioned in 1991.
What people report
Local tradition holds that former inmates still walk the cells and exercise yards at night, and tour visitors have reported footsteps and cold spots.
That paragraph is reported tradition, not a claim about what is there. The history above it is sourced; the stories are recorded because people tell them.
Visiting
Girdlestone Street, Ararat VIC 3377, Australia