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The Haunting of Connaught Hospital

by T Stokes

Vampires
Government theft
Plates of Nephi
Murdered soldier

Walthamstow village in Britain's east London, has many tales to tell from its old buildings, Dating in the main back to before the Norman conquest of 1066, I thought this conservation area would be a good one to do one of the now popular "Ghost walks".

Word was duly put out from the little Spiritualist church in Vestry Rd, Where I trained for many years so long ago, and I anticipated perhaps half a dozen people, But the response shook me rigid to see the enormous crowd that turned out on a cold night, to hear the tales of local spookery.

The site of Connaught hospital in Orford Rd., was started in 1880 as a children's hospital, it took the name Connaught from 1928 when the Duke of Kent helped raise £17000 for running costs. Many local people supported the hospital with legacies from wills etc, even properties were left to run the cottage hospital and to keep it independent.

But things were not to be, the government hospitals survey committee in 1945 while promising to build a larger hospital on site, secretly planned to demolish the local Wanstead, Chingford, Thorpe Combe and Connaught hospitals. These were built on valuable pieces of land and although Connaught was built from private subscription, the government wanted to steal the site and the hospital was gradually run down and demolished in the 1980s. Small housing was built on the site, and several homes nearby allege spirit manifestation.

My mother was for many years the night casualty sister, and she reported to senior staff that late at night a new African nurse went missing from her post, only to be found sitting on a patients bed, with the blood drip in her
mouth, drinking away the patients life blood, real vampire fashion. It turned out she was a serial offender for this abomination in other hospitals.

The Old Town hall next door, which was part of the Connaught buildings, Was taken over and used as an centre for Asian studies in the 1970s. I was at that time a trauma counsellor, and was promoted to multicultural counsellor,
And I remember the outrage when British people who paid for the building and ran it, were now racially excluded.

Opposite is Summit Rd where a young, man in W.W.1 military uniform appears in the cottage over many years, where he is seen radiating a feeling of great unhappiness and despair, has been the subject of so many paranormal studies that the family who lived there, were totally fed up and just accepted the sad stranger in military uniform who would suddenly appear.

The old lady who lived there between the wars on her deathbed told the church cannon that the apparition was her elder brother, an asthmatic and nervous boy who was pressured to join the army under age for W. W. 1. And badly shell-shocked, ran away after the battle of the Somme, After seeing a swarm of rats eating the dead and wounded.
And at age 16 was shot for desertion.

Government propaganda was behind many children being pressured to enlist under age and then murdered for "cowardice" by firing squads. The sad young man is said to be waiting his pardon.

Walthamstow museum which was the old work house, is haunted by several ghosts, At times a lady in grey has been seen, but children can often be heard running in heavy shoes across the wooden boards chatting and laughing.
Between the railway bridges over Orford Rd and West Avenue is where a bullied teenage boy with learning difficulties ended his life in the sixties, train drivers still occasionally see his shape as they drive past the spot.

The Spiritualist church which is a quaint old building, would often be full to bursting after The ending of W.W.1 and W.W.II when it was said every family in the land lost someone, Strangely the church full of spirits during meetings is not itself haunted.

Opposite the Castle public house at number 8 is where the ghost of the chap known as the "coin man" lived and did religious research and is said to have discovered the "Plates of Nephi" on which the Mormon Church was founded,
after several years of deep research the theory was very controversially, narrowly rejected by Church hierarchy in Salt Lake City, although many Americans still visit.

In years gone by the house was a butchers shop and abattoir, and these premises are often the focus of strange psychic activity, and one evening here some time back Several of us with an EMF ( electro magnetic field meter) which picks up ghostly electrical currents, a handheld temperature gun for assessing drops in temperatures, Night vision cameras and simple EVP equipment ( electronic voice phenomena) for Recording sounds from the past, all gathered to see what occurred. Certainly an amazing experience.

Hospitals are the most haunted places on earth, because people pass over in a drugged up confused state, and can remain that way for some considerable time, particularly if their mindset is of the sceptical variety, and the old
hospital site has many tales from its past, but that will be another day