Haunted Military Hospital

3/30/2025

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
The first military hospital in Aldershot, Hampshire was situated near a church. It was established as a lunatic asylum and pestilence hospital. Close by was the Union Hospital, which started out as a poor house. During the mid-1800s the Connaught Hospital for a while specialized in treating men with venereal disease, and ended as a dental facility which closed its doors in 1973. However long before it was abandoned there were stories about a mysterious gray lady.

WWI nurse

The Union Hill building on Hospital Hill in Aldershot, was once part of the manor belonging to the Tichborne Family, which dates back to 1629. It would go on to become the Aldershot Workhouse., and then in 1850 it was a school for pauper children. It evolved into a military hospital, but it proved too small which led to the building of the Cambridge Military Hospital, which opened on July 18, 1879. Its patients were injured soldiers from the Boer War (1899-1902) through the first Gulf War (1990-1991).

One of its mysteries is the identity of who designed the building. The best guess is that he was a Royal Engineer. It was built by Martin Wells and Co.

After the end of WWII, the hospital started to take civilians as patients.

Another hospital in Aldershot was The Connaught Hospital finished in 1898. It was an isolation hospital and during WWI provided over 1,000 beds, with 2/3 used as a lunatic asylum and those suffering from mental problems due to the war. In October 1941, the Connaught was handed over to the Canadian Army Medical Corps, who left in 1946. Eventually the building was declared unsafe and the last units were moved out. An Army report of 1984 noted the building was in “an extremely distressed state", and it was demolished by the end of the 1980s.

However only the Cambridge lays claim to a haunting, and not in the mortuary which is a small building that sits detached on the perimeter of the hospital, but on the upper floor between wards 10 and 14. She is known as the Gray Lady, and a smell of lavender surrounds her apparition. The story told of the origins of the ghost is that she was a member of Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, who committed suicide by throwing herself from the upper floor walkway. It was precipitated by guilt after she gave a soldier a fatal drug overdose by accident. It is believed that in the afterlife she is trying to help those dying to transition to the death state, since her appearance coincides with dying or very ill patients.

Witnesses describe where the corridor would turn freezing cold. Nurses and other employees would use the stairs and other paths between wards to avoid the spooky section where she is seen.

One of the encounters was described this way:

It was 1986, and I was in Ward 9 or Ward 10 (not sure which) on the top floor overlooking the back of the hospital, having had a hiatus hernia op. Being quite ill, I was in the first bed on the right next to the nurse's station and was propped up with several pillows as I could not lie down. This made sleep difficult, although I did doze off and wake up again every 15 minutes or so. I still recall it felt like sleep deprivation.

On one of my many moments of wakefulness at around 02:00 I observed a woman in uniform standing by a bed three down from me on my side of the ward and I genuinely thought she was the duty officer doing her rounds, but was a bit confused by her uniform, which looked a bit dated as the skirt was very long and the had a stiff, starched collar. Her head-piece... was also starched and very wide in a diamond shape and it came further forward over her forehead. more than those which are clipped onto the back of the head. I noticed she was also wearing stiff white cuffs on her sleeves and a cape - but it was grey and not red.

The most unusual aspect was that I could not see her face. That is, I could see it, which was oval, but she seemed to have no features but I put this down to the fact that I was extremely tired and my eyes may not have been focusing.

When the nurse came round in the morning, delivering washing bowls to those of us unable to get out of bed, I asked her who the QA officer had been. She said that no-one had visited the ward that night, not even a duty officer and asked why I wanted to know, so I told her about the old-fashioned uniform, which looked very smart but a bit out of place. She turned white and her eyes opened wide as she said... 'Oh my God. You have seen the Grey Lady'. She then went on to very helpfully explain to a very ill patient that anyone who sees the Grey Lady will die. Thankfully I am not particularly superstitious and I told her that this was nonsense, as how would anyone else know that a patient had seen the Grey Lady if they were dead? She reluctantly agreed but her shock was tangible.

The crux of the story is that the fellow in the bed three down from me, the bed at which I had seen the Grey Lady standing... was found dead when they brought breakfast round a few minutes later... I went up the stairs and just as I went through the door into the section where the chapel chairs were, I saw a figure moving in between the rows of chairs. She had a veil on, similar but not quite the same as the Nursing Officers, not as starched. But I thought it was because there was only minimal lighting on. I didn't say anything or walk forward but when she walked around the end of the chairs I couldn't see her feet. Her dress stopped mid calf and there was nothing below that level. As I started walking forward she just disappeared. The doors at either end of that section of corridor did not move.

I turned round and went back down the stairs walked along the main corridor to the next flight of stairs went up and told my friend what I had seen. One of the senior nurses there, who knew the history of the building said that the original floor had been 12-18 inches lower, which would explain the missing feet.

WWI wounded soldiers

In 1899, several soldiers died at the hospital after they returned from maneuvers at the Salisbury Plain. Two had died from what seemed to be Ptomaine poisoning, another named Leslie of the 2nd Royal Highlanders also died, and 18 more were in the hospital with fears they would all succumb. It was believed the tinned food they took on maneuvers were contaminated.

In 1930, George Deavin had gone to the hospital for an operation for a perforated gastric ulcer. The 54-year-old was in recovery, however he told his wife he could not sleep because he thought someone was going to shoot him. He was known as a reliable and happy man, but an attendant at the hospital noticed that he was quiet, morose, "kind of sardonic" and had a strange smile. He was removed from the large ward because he was disturbing the other patients. When the attendant was building up a fire, he took a razor he had asked his wife to bring him, and tried to cut his throat. This was against the rules to bring a razor to any patient, and the hospital would make arrangements for the shaving of patients. It was taken away from him before he could harm himself more. At some point he got hold of another razor, and cut his throat again, this time fatally.

The hospital was eventually closed on February 9, 1996 because asbestos was found, and it was deemed too expensive to make the necessary improvements and maintain such an old building.

No doubt after so many years treating those who were ill and dying, there are others who perhaps linger in the long, dark hallways besides the mysterious Gray Lady.