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Hospital of the Five Wounds and the Ghost of the Nun Haunting it

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The Hospital of the Five Wounds in Seville, Spain is said to be haunted by both the many victims of the plague as well as a vicious nun called Sister Ursula that was so horrible towards her patients, she is cursed to be stuck in her afterlife as a ghost. 

In 1965 Manuel Moreno was admitted to Hospital of the Five Wounds and had snuck out in the corridor to smoke in secret. He suddenly felt cold and the cigarette went out. When he turned he was faced to face with a nun looking at him disapprovingly. Scared, he ran off, knowing that it was a ghost he had encountered and ran to tell the nurses. They didn’t believe him, and the superior nun told him, “do you see how it is not good to smoke?”. Since that day, Moreno never touched a cigarette, but countless eyewitnesses would go on to see the ghosts that are said to haunt the Hospital of Five Wounds. 

Today the building that was once a hospital called Hospital de las Cinco Llagas that means The Hospital of the Five Wounds is used to host the Andalucian Parliament in Seville, Spain. It is also known as Hospital de la Sangre, which means Hospital of Bloods.

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from Spain

You can find this old building between the Arab Walls and the Basilica de la Macarena in Seville. At the time of construction Hospital of the Five Wounds was the biggest in Spain and it was in its day the biggest hospital in Europe together with the Hospital Mayor of Milan in Filerete. 

The building is old and was first started in the 1500s as a hospital for women. So the only patients were women, with the exception for poor men that had nowhere to go. But that would all have to wait when the plagues started ravaging Spain the following centuries. 

The Plague and the Hospital of Blood

Throughout the years, the hospital was the place that faced the consequences of the illness, wars and death. The second half of the 17th century in Spain was particularly hard with drought, plagues and intense rainfall that worsened the life and health of the people. 

Seville was the most affected city in the country of this disease and it is estimated that a quarter of Seville’s population died during the plague, and the hospital was where everyone was brought. Of the around 25 000 of the plague patients that passed through the hospital only around 3000 walked out alive. Even the staff couldn’t live through the pandemic and more than 800 priests died, and 80 percent of the doctors that tried to cure them.

Although the Hospital of the Five Wounds is huge, the sickness was so many that the dead were piled on the esplanade and in the huge courtyards of the hospital. It was after this horrible plague that the hospital started to get known for its second name, The Hospital de la Sangre. 

Closing the Hospital of the Five Wounds

Bad economy and another plague hit the Hospital of the Five Wounds in the 19th century and different wars also affected the hospital that had to lay off staff on several occasions due to the economy. 

The Hospital of the Five Wounds: Today the former hospital is used for the Parlamento de Andalucía. (Antiguo Hospital de las cinco llagas)//Source: Anual/wikimedia

The building functioned as a hospital until 1972. For years after, the grand building in the style of Spanish Renaissance was left abandoned. The place was huge, but it was in a terrible state not fit for modern hospitals. 

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from old hospitals like Hauntingly Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital, Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital or Hauntings at the Weston State Hospital or the Trans-Allegheny Asylum

In 1992 they started to restore the Hospital of the Five Wounds to be used once again and the Parliament in Andalucia moved into it. 

Hauntings at the hospital

For many years there were unexplainable and strange events that happened. Over the years there have been a lot of investigations into the haunted rumors of the Hospital of the Five Wounds. It is even said there worked a security guard there that refused to make his rounds at night alone in the building. 

Even the former president of the parliament, Plácido Fernández Viagas claimed to have experienced something paranormal while working as an elected member in the building. 

It was said that the Hospital of the Five Wounds was haunted by soldiers that died from their war wounds, plague victims, women that died giving birth. Together they have formed a sense of presence in the old building, still wandering the halls they thought would help them heal from their ailments.

The Ghost of Sister Ursula

The most impressive thing about the Hospital of the Five Wounds is without the church with its latin cross. The hospital was run by an order of nuns of the Order Charity. 

The paranormal activity was blamed on the legend of Sister Ursula. She was a nun of the Order of Charity that used to work in the hospital when the plague ravaged the city during the 17th century, and we have written accounts that she was there around 1734 and 1738. 

She is no longer a healing nun though, and roams the hall of Hospital of the Five Wounds to scare and seek to cause pain to those in the building. Apparently she was a ruthless and abominable soul while she was alive, even though she was at the hospital to nurse. 

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories about nuns haunting the world like Wessobrunn Abbey’s Ghosts, Dracula and Ghost Nuns in Whitby Abbey or The Haunting of The House of Hohenzollern

According to the stories, she demanded inhuman discipline from those around her and was cold and heartless with a bad temperament. Many of her patients would die just right after she had been attending to them. Some of them were not even terminally ill. 

According to the legend, she died during the plague and started appearing in the corridors at night. She was still dressed in her habit and carried a set of keys on her belt that would rattle and make a ruckus as she roamed the halls.

This was witnessed in a June day in 1968 when the 40 year old Antonio Rodríguez was in a hospital bed and spotted the nun:

“it was late, the pain in my leg did not let me sleep and I was awake, in front of me, right in front of my bed something began to “shine” which I called my attention, little by little a human body was formed that wore a habit, it was a transparent nun who began to walk down the hall, the metallic jingle of her key ring full of keys resounding, as if she were doing a round on the sick…”

Especially right after the Hospital of the Five Wounds closed down in 1972 it was said by the neighbors that they saw a nun wearing ancient clothes wandering around the hospital. Perhaps she was confused about where everyone went off to and not having anyone to bother anymore. Perhaps the fact that the parliament moved into the building suits her perfectly. 

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References:

El más ilustre de los fantasmas de Sevilla
La celebración del Sevilla FC por la Europa League: recorrido, horarios y fiesta
Hospital de las Cinco Llagas de Sevilla: así se llamaba durante la peste y estas son sus leyendas
Hospital de las Cinco Llagas – Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
10 Scary Southern Spain Halloween Traditions

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The Haunted Colors of the Hippie Tree Outside the Asylum

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Outside the old Traverse City State Hospital in Michigan, there is an old willow called The Hippie Tree. It is said to be haunted by the former patients from the asylum and possibly a gateway to hell. 

In the secluded woods outside an abandoned state-run asylum called Old State Hospital Grounds near Traverse City, Michigan, stands The Hippie Tree, a silent witness to the spectral tales that have enshrouded it in an air of mysterious allure. Little is known about the creation of the tree, but it is said that it fell over and died when it was struck by lightning. 

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from the USA

The rotted and broken willow trees are painted with colorful neon paintings over the generations where one painting covers the faded one underneath. Its moniker derives not only from its location but from the unsettling local legend that has swirled around it for decades of it being haunted.

The Hippie Tree: In Traverse City you will find the Hippie Tree along the Hippie Tree Trail thought to be haunted or at least possess some spiritual powers from the former patients at the Traverse City Hospital.//Photo: Jeremy Thompson/Flickr

Traverse City State Hospital

But what patients are said to be haunting this particular tree? Traverse City State Hospital around there was opened in 1881, and was also once called Northern Michigan Asylum. It is the last Kirkbride Building standing in Michigan, a specific style of architecture for asylums. 

Read More: Check out all Haunted Hospitals around the world

There are many stories about how people treated mental illnesses, and before the drug therapy in the 1950s, the Traverse City State Hospital used a “beauty is therapy” philosophy. This meant to meet patients with kindness, comfort and pleasure where straitjackets for instances were forbidden. 

The idea was also to let the patients be surrounded by beautiful things like flowers, and perhaps the idea of painting the tree comes from this philosophy as well? 

Traverse City State Hospital closed its doors in 1989. It reopened again in 2002, but as The Village at Grand Traverse Commons, a place for shops, restaurants and offices, but there is still said to be ghostly remains of its time as a hospital. 

Traverse City State Hospital: Northern Michigan Asylum with its striking Kirkbride architecture is next to the Hippie Tree and housed the patients thought to possess and haunt the tree. The former hospital itself is also believed to be haunted.// Source

Haunted Legends about the Hospital

Traverse City State Hospital itself is lush with ghost stories as well. People claim they hear voices and footsteps when no one is there, as well as flickering light or an unnatural cold presence. 

This was especially talked about when they reopened the Traverse City State Hospital from the construction workers where some saw something that scared them so they refused to work on the building.

There is also a dark story about a doctor working at the hospital who killed patients as well as nurses, or about the hospital chaplain that went mad and hanged himself in the chapel they had. 

But although there are plenty of ghost stories inside the old asylum, the most well known story about this place is from the dead willow tree outside on the woodland trail. 

The Ghost of the Insane Asylum Patients

According to the lore, The Hippie Tree serves as a spectral meeting ground for the tormented souls of asylum patients coming from Traverse City State Hospital, their restless spirits lingering beneath its branches. 

The madness that once consumed them is said to echo through the rustling leaves, where they sometimes are mad, sometimes just sad.

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Haunted Forests from around the world

Another ghost haunting the tree apart from the patients is a boy that allegedly was murdered around these parts, although not much information is found on this branch of the legend. 

The Hippie Tree is said to be haunted by many spirits and in the most extreme versions of the legends, it is even a portal to hell that opens up by the roots if you walk around the tree in a specific way. No one has been able to come back and tell me the right way to do it yet. 

The Hippe Rituals by the Hippie Tree

Jeremy Thompson/Flickr

Visionaries, mystics, and spiritual seekers, often dubbed “hippies” by the locals, would gather beneath the gnarled branches of The Hippie Tree, seeking solace and enlightenment in the heart of the haunted woods. Thereby the name The Hippie Tree stuck around.

A peculiar tradition emerged as these seekers meditated beneath the spectral canopy. It is said that the ghosts and the trees give out a particular energy that the hippies explore sitting on The Hippie Tree. 

In a ritualistic expression of their transcendental experiences, they would paint the revelations of their heightened consciousness onto the tree’s branches, creating a kaleidoscope of psychedelic visions amid the eerie silence of the asylum grounds.

How many people have painted on The Hippie Tree is unclear, at least thousand they say, creating another psychedelic picture on top of the other. 

Serving Colors and Ghosts

As night descends upon The Hippie Tree, the shadows cast by its haunted branches come alive, inviting those brave enough to delve into the mysteries that lurk within the heart of Traverse City’s most bewitched woodland sanctuary.

In daylight it serves as a colorful and fun thing to brighten up passersby and visitors alike in perhaps the most brightly looking haunted spot. 

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References:

Northern Michigan’s Hippie Tree | Kyle Schepperley | NewsBreak Original 

Traverse City State Hospital – Wikipedia

The Hippie Tree/Traverse City State Hospital  

Traverse City State Hospital & the Hippie Tree – Journey With Murphy 

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The Haunted Preventorio de Aigües in Alicante

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The former wellness hotel and sanatorium called Preventorio de Aigües is said to have healing thermal water as well as the ruins of the buildings are said to have attracted ghosts. This abandoned building close to Alicante is popular with paranormal seekers and ghosts alike. 

Among the many haunted places around the world, Haunted Hospital in Spain is known for its eerie atmosphere. The ghost that is said to linger in the hospital has been a topic of discussion for horror enthusiasts for a long time. 

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from Spain

The hospital has a dark history, and it’s not hard to imagine the spirits of those who perished there still wandering through its corridors.

The Time as a Wellbeing Hotel

This 19th century building high up in the mountains 25 kilometers from the city of Alicante in Spain was originally built as a luxury hotel in Aguas de Busot by Count de Casa de Rojas and Marquis de Bosh for the rich and wealthy. 

The hotel was known as Hotel Miramar Winter Station and was built out with many buildings, chapels, a casino, a playground and sport facilities. It was a state of luxury, and the guests were all from high society where even the King and Queen of Spain visited.

Haunted Building: the Preventorio de Aigües now abandoned is thought to be haunted by the children that used to live there when it was used as a sanatorium//Source: Jesús Alenda/wikimedia

Today the only building still standing from it is the building from 1816 designed by the architect Pedro Garcia Faria and the once glorious place is now only an abandoned shell of what it once was. And throughout the years, it truly was a lot.   

The Civil War Closed the Door of the Hotel

But the story took a sharp turn in the later years. In 1930 the luxury hotel closed its doors as a hotel and spa. According to the stories, it is said that the owner, Marquis de Bosch lost the hotel in a poker game.

At the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Preventorio de Aguas de Busot was turned into a sanatorium for children. The idea was to take uninfected children and keep them away to prevent them from being infected as well as to accommodate orphans. 

When the disease started to die out the hospital was abandoned in the late 1960s and remains so to this day. 

The Building as a Sanatorium

A sanatorium is an old name for specialized hospitals that were made for specific ailments. They were often built in the countryside with plenty of fresh air in a healthy climate isolated from the outside world. Sanatoriums across Europe and America were very popular to treat tuberculosis until the discovery of antibiotics. 

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from old hospitals like Hauntingly Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital, Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital or Hauntings at the Weston State Hospital or the Trans-Allegheny Asylum

It could however also be a place for people to heal from things like alcoholism, nervous diseases like hysteria or emotional exhaustions. After medical advances the use of sanatoriums declined and many were abandoned in the mid 1900s often and has since gained a haunted reputation. 

The Healing Thermal Water

The water in the area was thought to contain healing properties all the way back to Roman times and it is also chronicled by Arabs that resided in Spain in medieval times. 

They have talked about the good water in the hot springs found in the area, making it a perfect spot for a wellbeing hotel. It is also a place perfect for where mysterious things happen.

The Haunting in the Abandoned building

Now the building is abandoned and the only visitors are those seeking out the paranormal rumors and trying to investigate if they are true or not. In 2005 they tried to install some fences around the place, but no fences have ever held the most intense people out. 

People that have visited the place say that you can find many secret tunnels from the war leading as far to the neighboring town called Campello. There is even paperwork from both the time it served as a hotel as well as a hospital where even old patient files lie scattered around in the ruins. They have also come back claiming to have seen a ghost or two. 

Inside the old hospital it is said you can hear whistles while a translucent figure is climbing the ruined stairs.

It is said the place is haunted by the children that ended their life here, even though there are not really any recordings of deaths related to tuberculosis in the building. The legend persists and there are many who claim to have seen the ghosts of children around the ruins. 

Although no one really died of tuberculosis, there were recorded deaths of fires, sunstrokes and falls. 

The Woman in White

It is also said that a woman in white is seen crying when calamities approach. According to the legend, she could be seen in the reflection in a mirror that hung by the stairs to the first floor.  If you saw her laughing and crying at the same time, it was all good. But if you saw her only sobbing it meant something bad was going to happen. 

She is most often seen walking around the building at night and some claim that was  the wife of the Count of Casas Rojas, the former owner of the hotel and spas. Some of the variations of the legends says that she used to reside inside of a mirror, but when the mirror broke, she escaped and is now walking freely around.

According to the locals, the staff that used to work there used black magic in the church in the building and there are rumors that the place was also the place for a sect with ill intentions. 

The Future of the Sanatorium

Through the knocked down fences, the dark building stands looming on the hill. 

What will happen with the building is unclear, as it has been the topic of debate and in court for decades now. Some want to construct a hotel again, perhaps turn it into a museum. Some even want to tear the entire building to the ground. 

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References:


El preventorio de Aigües de Bussot – Mitos y Leyendas en la provincia de Alicante
Leyendas urbanas: fantasmas en Alicante – Hoja del Lunes
Blog escrito desde Alicante: PREVENTORIO AGUAS DE BUSOT (2ª PARTE)
El preventorio de Aigües, lugar maldito donde habita lo paranormal
El abandonado preventorio de Aigües de Busot: sanatorio de tuberculosos
El Preventorio de Aguas de Busot en Alicante | Excursiones
Preventorio de Aguas de Busot: Siniestro Levante | Traveler
Preventorio de Aguas de Busot – Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
Road trip through the gloomiest haunted houses in Spain
Visiting Spain’s Most Haunted Locations | Right Casa Estates

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Verge del Toro Hospital and the Night it Became Haunted

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One night the Spanish Civil Guard were called out to strange things happening at the old Verge del Toro Hospital in Spain. When they got there, they experienced what they claim was an extreme haunting from the ghosts of the former patients. 

On the island of Menorca there was a hospital that closed in 2007 after the New Mateu Orfila General Hospital opened on Menorca. The hospital in the city of Mahon had operated for over 60 years before closing its doors. 

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from Spain

The hospital became a well known haunted hospital after they did a segment on the place on the Cuarto Milenio program that showcases different allegedly haunted locations and ghost stories in 2012. 

The story was told of Daniel, in the civil guard from Menorca that had visited the closed hospital five years earlier.

The Night of the Haunting at the Hospital of Verge del Toro

On November 1st in 2007 the Spanish Civil Guard as well as the police got a call for someone breaking in  around half past two in the morning and they went in after a warning for the night security working in the building. 

At this time, the Verge del Toro hospital had already been abandoned for a couple of months, the windows were dark, the doors locked.

A patrol of two agents arrived shortly after and went from room to room to find the ones breaking in but found no one. When they were on the ground floor however, they heard a macabre laughter and whispers coming from the upper floors. 

When they were standing outside of the hospital they could see how the lights in the former hospital went on and off for no reason and shadows appeared and disappeared in the windows.

The guards called for backup and four Civil Guard agents as well as two from the National Police Corpse that just happened to be walking by were tasked to inspect the hospital further. 

They went in again, both by the stairs and the elevators from first to fifth floor to find those laughing and pranking in the empty hospital, but found no one. 

Daniel told the TV-program that they believed those breaking in at the Verge del Toro hospital hid and that further steps were needed to get to the bottom of the strange things happening in the abandoned hospital. 

On the third inspection when they went in full force with even police dogs with them they finally realized that not everything was as it should and the strange things happening was not the work of people that had broken in. 

When they went up to the 5th floor they had already inspected two times, they found that the heavy beds and furniture like lamps were dragged across the rooms and the doors to the cabinets were opened up. The furniture was too heavy to be moved in the ten minutes they left the room, according to Daniel. 

They tried to get the highly trained police dogs to come along with them to the top floor in the elevator. The dogs had been perfectly fine up to this point, but started crying when in the elevator and refused to go out when they reached the top floor. Not even when the owner threw their favorite toys into the corridor they managed to get the dog out. The owner claimed that usually the dog would have gone to the bottom of the sea to look for the toy. But not out in this haunted corridor. 

The Woman in White

It was then they saw her, on their fourth attempt to find out what was happening there. Hidden in the corner they saw the shadow of a very strange woman, almost as if covering in the shadows around 20 to 25 meters away from them. 

The agents asked her to identify herself and get out with her hands up. They get no response from the strange woman. They ask again and tell that they will draw their weapons if she disobeys and threatens them in any way. 

Then the woman is said to have just suddenly disappeared into thin air right before their eyes. This was even with the windows and the doors of the hospital blocked off and agents at all of the exits. There was simply no physical reason to disappear from the place. 

The Neighbours Spotting the Ghosts

It is said that that night was not the only night when something strange occurred in the hospital. Several months after the episode had aired on TV, the residents of the Tanques del Carme neighborhood next to the hospital experienced somethings strange as well when they noticed that again strange things were happening to the lights in the otherwise dark fromer hospital. 

After many years of controversies over what to do with the building, they decided to reform it into a socio-health center in 2019, and is still undergoing remodeling. 

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from old hospitals like Hauntingly Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital, Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital or Hauntings at the Weston State Hospital or the Trans-Allegheny Asylum

After the strange events at the Verge del Toro hospital right after its closing, the people that went that night still have no rational explanation for what happened. 

The 5th floor used to be reserved for people with psychiatric problems and people think that it must have been a former patient there. Did she come back after the Verge del Toro hospital closed down for some reason? Or was it so that she really came back from the dead?

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Que los vecinos vieran una ventana iluminada en antiguo hospital Verge del Toro…

Este hospital está encantado según la Guardia Civil | Baleares | elmundo.es

Hospital Verge del Toro – Viquipèdia, l’enciclopèdia lliure

Road trip through the gloomiest haunted houses in Spain

¿Fenómenos paranormales en el antiguo hospital de Maó?

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The Ghosts of the White Plague Haunting the Alfaguara Sanatorium

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In the ruins of Alfaguara Sanatorium, also known as The Berta Hospital in Spain they tried as many sanatoriums did, to cure tuberculosis. It is said the victims of the white plague are still haunting the ground as well as the founder of the hospital.  

One of the smallest haunted hospitals in Spain is known for its long history of ghost sightings and paranormal activity. This hospital has been abandoned for many years and has become a popular destination for ghost hunters and thrill-seekers alike.

In Granada there was a sanatorium that was built in 1923 to help with the rising problem of tuberculosis in wartime at the beginning of the 20th century and operated as a hospital until it closed in 1940. 

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from Spain

At the hospital’s inauguration the archbishop, the military governor and representatives of the city council of Granada with a large audience helped open the hospital. The furniture was even donated by Queen Victoria Eugenia who served as the president of the Red Cross for Ladies. Later the hospital was abandoned and forgotten except for the ghosts said to roam in the ruins. 

The Old Alfaguara Sanatorium

A sanatorium is an old name for specialized hospitals that were made for specific ailments. They were often built in the countryside with plenty of fresh air in a healthy climate isolated from the outside world. Sanatoriums across Europe and America were very popular to treat tuberculosis until the discovery of antibiotics. 

Tuberculosis was one of the deadliest illnesses in Europe at the turn of the century and was often known as the white plague and is one of the oldest diseases we have proof of.

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from old hospitals like Hauntingly Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital, Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital or Hauntings at the Weston State Hospital or the Trans-Allegheny Asylum

It could however also be a place for people to heal from things like alcoholism, nervous diseases like hysteria or emotional exhaustions. After medical advances the use of sanatoriums declined and many were abandoned in the mid 1900s often and has since gained a haunted reputation. 

Trying to Cure Tuberculosis

The Alfaguara Sanatorium was built with the money of a German Lady, Berta Wilhelmi, a philanthropist and was also known as the Berta Hospital. It was built in the area of what is now known as the heart of the Sierra de Huetor Natural Park in the mountain range, surrounded by Mediterranean and pine forest and fresh air in the mountains, something that was especially good for tuberculosis patients. 

Berta Wilhelmi was a businesswoman and philanthropist who had settled in Granada in 1870 when she was a child after moving from Heilbronn, Germany after the family mill had burnt to the ground and they went to Spain to start again. 

She had a brother who was named Luis who passed away from tuberculosis when he was only 12 years old and to cure people from it was close to her heart. 

This is why she invested a huge amount of her personal fortune into building a hospital that could help prevent further death from this disease. 

The Berta Hospital

Together with some doctors they built a new hospital to help with the rise of tuberculosis in the region. Tuberculosis was a dangerous illness at this time and spread fast in the overcrowded time of the early industrialization of the world and the approaching civil war that turned it into an epidemic. 

Most patients didn’t pay for their stay as it was first and foremost a philanthropic project for Berta and those who did pay paid three pesetas for their board at the hospital. 

The small hospital of Alfaguara Sanatorium was made to house 24 patients, and they also made a preventorium to house children in addition later. They stayed in their own pavilion named after Berta’s own son that passed away in 1925. 

She was well known for this type of work, and had also founded schools and was the director for the hospital until her death in 1934. And for the believers of the paranormal, some claim that her ghost is still roaming the place and looking out for it. 

The Ruins of the Hospital

The ruins of the building of Alfaguara Sanatorium are pretty hidden away and are today mostly rubbles and ruins you have to reach by foot up the mountain. 

The rumors say the sanatorium closed down for unknown reasons. What we do know is that the Spanish Civil War was raging at the time and the hospital was very close to one of the fronts and trenches by the Toriles fort near the town of Cogollos.

At one point in 1939 the hospital had more than 60 armed soldiers inside the compound and the scars of the Civil War in Spain are still felt by the nation where thousands of people died for their ideologies.

In the postwar times it was completely abandoned, but has been protected as a part of the forest conservation program of the Natural Park where it is in. 

The Ghosts of the Alfaguara Sanatorium

Today Alfaguara Sanatorium is known as a haunted place that draws hiking ghost hunters to see the ruins for themselves and do an investigation of the place. People that have visited claim to have seen ghostly silhouettes in the ruins and heard voices of the people that used to live there. 

Who are the ghosts that are said to haunt the place? A fact is that many of the tuberculosis patients didn’t make it, and some claim that it is the spirits of the patients taken by the white plague that is haunting the place. 

Considering Alfaguara Sanatorium role in the Spanish Civil War as well, some speculate that there were victims of war that ended their days inside of the hospital.  

Could it be Berta herself who is haunting her old hospital she poured her passion and love into just to see it crumble just a couple of decades after she built it?  

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References:

Se cumplen cien años del sanatorio de la Alfaguara

SANATORIO ANTITUBERCULOSO DE ALFAGUARA – GRANADA

Sanatorio y Dispensario de la Alfaguara – Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

Road trip through the gloomiest haunted houses in Spain

Berta Wilhelmi y el sanatorio antituberculoso de la Alfaguara | Gomeres

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Cork District Mental Hospital and its Horrible History

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What former asylum doesn’t have a haunted reputation? The Cork District Mental Hospital has gone under many names, but with the same hauntingly horrible reputation where the living conditions, treatments and life of the patients still linger as a dark shadow over the place.

In the heart of County Cork, Ireland, stands a place that has long stirred both curiosity and fear—a site where the echoes of the past reverberate with chilling tales and lingering apparitions. Cork District Mental Hospital, also known by various names like Our Lady’s Hospital, Eglinton Lunatic Asylum, St. Kevin’s Hospital as well as the Irish name, Ospidéal Mhuire has cemented its status as a place where the line between the living and the spectral blurs into the realm of the unexplained.

Cork District Mental Hospital, with its tangled history and evolving identity, has become synonymous with the supernatural and is reportedly haunted according to those that visit the ominous looking building overlooking the river Lee. 

Read More: Check out all of the ghost stories from Ireland

In the days when it was known as Eglinton Lunatic Asylum, it served as a place of refuge for those grappling with the unfathomable complexities of the human mind. The halls of the asylum bore witness to countless stories of suffering and despair, as patients sought solace within its walls. As the institution evolved, so did the ghostly legends that became intertwined with its history.

The Asylum with Horrible Living Conditions

It wasn’t just a place of healing though, as the asylum grappled with the same thing a lot of other institutions did, overcrowding being a main factor. Reports done by the inspector of mental hospitals said it was a vermin-infested and dark place, the rooms were dirty and some of the patients were incarcerated after being guilty of nothing and had no reason for being locked up there. 

In the 1930s they reported there were no soap or towels for the patients, and no curtains covering the windows that were covered by plywood instead. There weren’t even toilet seats and the bathroom was dirty. 

Read More: Check out Hauntings at the Weston State Hospital or the Trans-Allegheny Asylum, Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital and Poveglia Island — The Most Haunted Place in the World as well.

The patients had to spend their own money and buy washing machines the female patients in one ward could use. In 1937, the Cork Examiner described it as a chapter of horrors and a total disgrace in terms of taking care of patients. 

The Asylum turned to Apartments

Deinstitutionalization heralded the closure of the asylum, marking the end of an era in psychiatric care when it closed its doors in 1992. Some long term blocks remained open until 2009. Even then the conditions were said to have been horrible for the day’s standard. 

The once-imposing structure was transformed into a residential area, its walls no longer holding the tormented souls of its former residents. However, tales of the supernatural lingered on, etching themselves into the collective memory of County Cork.

The Haunting of the Asylum

Even today, as modernity has taken root in the former asylum’s grounds, whispers of apparitions, disturbing sounds, and ungodly atmospheres persist. The stories of those who once sought refuge within these walls refuse to fade away, leaving behind an undeniable aura of unease.

When a devastating fire destroyed much of the building in 2017, people remembered just how dark the story of the old building comes with.  The boundaries between the past and the present blur as they traverse its now-residential streets, allowing the spectral echoes of the institution’s past to wash over them.

People have on several platforms shared their stories about the strange things they encountered when they used to work there, or visited after it was closed. Some things, sounds and sights were just unexplainable and many believe it to be haunted. 

Cork District Mental Hospital, County Cork’s haunting relic, continues to captivate and terrify in equal measure. It stands as a place where history and the supernatural coexist, where the ghosts of the past refuse to rest, and where the unexplained continues to send shivers down the spine of those who dare to explore its shadowy corridors.

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References:

Our Lady’s Hospital, Cork – Wikipedia 

History of St Kevin’s: A mental health institution that incarcerated innocent people in filthy conditions

The ghosts of Eglinton Asylum 

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High Street Ghost House in the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex

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On High Street in Hong Kong there is a haunted house with a long history of housing nurses as well as patients that are now haunting the building known as the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex 

High Street, Hong Kong, is a one way street filled with stories and culture that connects to the Bonham Road and Pok Fu Lam Road in the Sai Ying Pun district, that referred to the military camps as it used to be a place where the British stayed.

The area above High Street was assigned to Europeans only and the Chinese were excluded from living there once upon a time. The street itself used to be called Fourth Street, but since the connotation with bad luck and death in China, the street changed its name to High Street. 

Read also: Haunted Numbers

And the reputation of the street is like the reputation of its former name, haunted and cursed. So take a tour down High Street with us to experience all that this iconic destination has to offer.

As you stroll along High Street, you’ll encounter many sites and monuments of note, such as parks, schools, markets and mansions. One of the buildings is the Sai Ying Pun Complex (西營盤社區綜合大樓). 

The High Street Haunted House

There are some dark mysteries surrounding the streets of High Street in Hong Kong. The Sai Ying Pun Community complex dates back to 1892 when it was built for hosting European nurses working at the Civil Hospital until World War II.

Sai Ying Pun Community Complex

There was a lot to do, as even the bubonic plague ravaged the district in 1894 that wiped out entire streets and some of the ghost stories you hear about it today is from the unfortunate patients that didn’t make it. 

Read More: Check out all our collection of ghost stories from China

The Sai Ying Pun Community Complex was also where they reportedly executed people when the Japanese occupied China during World War II. 

After the war the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex was turned into an asylum where the building was for female patients and what most locals know the building for. It was one of its kind back then and known as the mental asylum. This closed its doors in 1961 after the opening of Castle Peak Mental Hospital, but served as a day treatment center until 1971.

Read more: Haunted Hospitals and Asylums

Since then the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex has been known for being one of the most haunted places in Hong Kong and often the building was simply called High Street Ghost House. 

High Street Ghost House

In the 70s, the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex was largely abandoned except for drug addicts from the nearby methadone clinic and teenagers coming to spray graffiti and talk about the ghosts they claimed to see there. There is not really one specific story about the building, but most dates back to its time as the mental hospital.

The ghost stories from the High Street Ghost House also bled through into the urban legends and ghost stories from the metro stations that were built underneath the area as well were stories about the ghost of the mental hospital wandered down to the underground stations.

Today the Sai Ying Pun Community Complex is a protected 9 storey building on the site with the arched verandas. There have been reports about headless ghosts roaming the corridors of the community complex and it is said it’s the spirits of the murdered victims and patients that died there. 

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References:

High Street | LANDMARK

Sai Ying Pun Community Complex – Wikipedia 

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The Old Maternity Hospital Haunts the Building of Cordoba University

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What used to be an old maternity hospital in Spain turned into a faculty of Cordoba University. Both staff working there as well as their students talk about it being haunted by the grieving mothers that lost their life in childbirth. 

Have you ever heard of the mysterious and dark stories of a haunted school in Spain known as University of Córdoba or as it is in Spanish, Universidad de Córdoba? It has become one of the most talked-about topics in recent years due to its eerie atmosphere and paranormal activities.

Universidad de Córdoba is a university in Córdoba, in Andalusia, Spain, that started in 1972, but dates back to the Andalusian region’s Moorish roots.

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from Spain

The Cordoba University offers both undergraduate and postgraduate studies in everything from humanities, social sciences, and engineering.

It used to be a lot of things before education and we can trace the building back to the 16th century when it was a convent, an anti tuberculosis sanatorium, a military hospital during the civil war as well as a maternity hospice.

The Old Maternity Hospital

At the faculty of Law, Business and Economics on Puerta Nueva street  the students and staff alike claim it is haunted by ghosts. The building the faculty is in used to be a hospital from the 1700s. 

During the late 80s there was a renovation that brought up the building’s old past and in the 90s there was a lot of talk about the hauntings the story of the building brought with it. And when the building was transformed into a college in the 70s, they found corpses and small bones belonging to babies in the ground. 

The University of Córdoba building used to be a maternity hospital. The ghosts that roam the halls are often said to be women that died in childbirth, and they are seen crying of the loss of their children as well as their own. 

The Haunted Cordoba University: The building that used to be an old maternity hospital is now believed to be haunted by the former patients//Source: Rafael Jiménez/Wikimedia

One particular ghost most seen is a long-haired woman in a white hospital gown. Apparently she had blood on her nightgown no one knows for sure what is from, but most speculate it was from the difficult birth she experienced. She is thought to be one of the women that lost her baby in childbirth and threw herself from the bell tower because she couldn’t bear the pain. 

Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from old hospitals like Hauntingly Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital, Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital or Hauntings at the Weston State Hospital or the Trans-Allegheny Asylum

It is also said the University of Córdoba is haunted by a soldier from the time it functioned as a soldier hospital during the civil war, angry in his afterlife and threatening to kill everyone that encounters him. 

A lot of poltergeist-like activity like breaking windows and moving objects to scare people have been attributed to this ghost. 

The Staff at Cordoba University Experiencing Paranormal Phenomena

The supposed ghosts are most often witnessed inside the faculty of University of Córdoba by the poor staff that has to remain there when everyone else is gone and darkness falls over the old building. 

The cleaning staff have gotten the most of the paranormal experience and people that have worked there claimed to have been locked inside of the room, objects flying through the room.  

According to one story a cleaner once got a child’s voice calling her name when she was listening to music with headphones. 

Haunting at other Faculties of the Cordoba University

Other faculties under the Cordoba University are the philosophy faculty or Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. It is housed in the baroque building from 1703 that used to be a general hospital called Hospital del Cardenal Salazar in the old Jewish quarter of the city. 

One cleaner in this faculty used to talk with a teacher during his shifts. One day he found out the teacher had been dead for many days, even though they spoke in the school after the teacher passed away. 

People have also talked about seeing lights in the darkened windows, a ghost holding a light while floating past, and children wearing old fashioned clothes running around in the hallways. 

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References:

Los Fantasmas de la Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales

Terror en las aulas: las historias de fantasmas en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de Córdoba

La extraña presencia que se manifiesta en la Universidad de Córdoba y que inquieta a alumnos y profesores – La Noche de Adolfo Arjona – COPE

University of Córdoba (Spain) – Wikipedia

Top Haunted and Mysterious Places in Spain | Scariest Places in Spain to Visit

The 5 most Haunted Places in Spain

Los fantasmas de la Facultad de Derecho de la UCO atemorizan turistas

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The Soldier Ghosts Haunting the Iconic Château de Chambord

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Get to know one of the most iconic castles in France – Château de Chambord. The grand castle is, according to legend, designed by Leonardo da Vinci himself. And it is also said that the castle is haunted by the souls of the soldiers of the Franco-Prussian War.

Built by King Francis I in the 1600s, the Château de Chambord is one of France’s most iconic castles in the Loire Valley in the heart of France because of its distinct French Renaissance architecture. 

The Château was originally built to be a hunting lodge for King Francis I and it is filled with centuries of history, the majestic site quickly became one of the country’s biggest attractions and remains a must-see destination for travelers today. 

History of Château de Chambord

Château de Chambord was built by King Francis I of France from 1519 to 1547. The property took 14 years to build and stretch out an impressive 52,000 square meters (558,000 sq feet). 

Its design was a blend of both Gothic and Renaissance architecture, with a blend of French and Italian elements the French brought home from Italy after the Hundred Years’ War. The castle is surrounded by a park 5 km (3 miles) in circumference and is home to 46 staircases, 282 fireplaces, and 440 rooms.

Designed by Leonardo Da Vinci?

The immense double staircase is an exceptional feature of the Château de Chambord, which according to legend was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, although the true architect behind it is much disputed. This design which blends together two symmetrical independent spiral staircases is perhaps one of its most remarkable features. In order to ensure this symmetry, both staircases ascend the same height and never meet each other. 

Château de Chambord’s double helix also intersects with multiple rooms, creating spectacular illusions by allowing visitors to originate from any point of departure and remain completely unseen from anyone in the opposite staircase.

The Hauntings at Château de Chambord

Rumors about paranormal activity in the castle have been around since the 19th century and the castle has been abandoned many times during the long war years, revolution and so on. Many visitors reported seeing mysterious figures and hearing strange, unexplained noises inside its walls. 

During the Franco-Prussian War from 1870-1871 the Château de Chambord was used as a field hospital. The war was between the Second French Empire and The North German Confederation that ended in German victory. It also ended in over 40 000 deaths on the German side and over 138 000 deaths on the French side. 

Many were taken to the Château de Chambord that was a field hospital back then and ended their lives there. After this, people in the grand Château claim to see the ghosts of the dead soldiers still wandering the halls and the grand staircase. 

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References

Château de Chambord – Wikipedia

Franco-Prussian War – Wikipedia 

France’s Top 5 Haunted Castles 

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Hauntingly Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital

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The abandoned sanatorium in Germany is said to be haunted by all those souls that died inside of it because of its dark history. And in the Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital, it wasn’t just sick people who ended up dying, but several murders took place in it or around it as well. 

Some buildings are just thought to be haunted by the look of them. Especially these old abandoned buildings with a dark and sinister history attached to them. One of these buildings with long ominous corridors and peeling paint is the Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital not far from Berlin in Germany. 

The sanatorium was first built in 1898 as a response to the rapid increase in tuberculosis patients at the time as it was the number one cause of death in Germany at the time for people between 15 to 40. 

The Abandoned Sanatorium: The Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital was originally built in 1898 as a treatment place for tuberculosis. Today it is abandoned with a haunted reputation over it.//source//wikimedia//qbanez

One of the treatments for this was fresh air, so the sanatorium was built in a remote pine forest. The Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital was a complex of around 60 buildings that in the end, almost served as a small town of itself, with its own bakery, shop, apartments, post office, stables, butcher shop and laundry houses. At the time it was the largest treatment center in the world for lung diseases with at its peak beds for over 1200 patients. 

During the first world war Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital served as a field hospital, and it got famous for treating Adolf Hitler who was wounded in his leg as well as being blinded by a gas attack by the British forces in the Battle of Somme. 

When the second world war started it would again be a treatment hospital for the Nazi forces until they lost and ended up being occupied by the Russians from 1945. Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital stayed like that until 1995 before closing its door for good. At least for treating patients. 

The Abandoned Buildings as a Murder Place

Many murders have taken place in this remote area and around it. After the Soviet left, it became a hotspot for satanic and occult people to gather to drink and keep seances. And it was also those with an even more sinister idea. 

In March 1991, a mother and her newborn child of three months were brutally murdered right outside the old sanatorium. It was the Beast of Beelitz  who had struck again, a notorious serial killer that had started on 24 of October in 1989. 

The serial killer Wolfgang Schimdt used to be called Beast of Beelitz or Pink Giant because of his choice of weapon. The killer who legally changed name to Beate and underwent gender reassignment had terrorized the local women for years and his modus operandi was to strangle the victims with pink womens underwear. The Beast of Beelitz is in prison to this day after killing 6 people. 

But it wasn’t the only murderer who used this place for his crimes. A photographer and sadist named Michael K brought a 20 year old model named Anja P. to Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital for pictures, and as he explained it, an erotic photo session that ended with her accidental death. 

During the photo session he ended up killing her, but the police found clear evidence that this was not an accident, but a premeditated murder. He beat her with a frying pan and had sex with her corpse after she died.  

Dark Tourism of Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital

Like many of these mysterious and abandoned places there are many people attracted to the eerie beauty of the macabre building and its history. Many visit the place to get a closer look at the building itself or just explore the paranormal rumors that are created by just the haunted atmosphere of the place. 

Dark Tourism: Most of the buildings of Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital are left to decay and a number of visitors come to experience the eery atmosphere of the abandoned building. But one of the reasons it is fenced off and off limits is because it is dangerous. Several people have had accidents in the unsecured and abandoned building who is falling apart. //source:Wendelin Jacober

Before 2015 it was mostly left to its own devices and people would come and go as they pleased. It was used as a movie location for the 2002 movie “The Pianist”, as well as being the place for horrific crimes. 

Today it is more closed off and taken back by the public to renovate and made into a tourist attraction rather than an urbex location for exploration. 

A Haunted Hospital

So is Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital really a haunted place? Considering all the dark stuff that have happened inside of the building complex it is easy to think why people would call this place haunted. But rather than a specific story or encounter that made the place famous, it seems to be the other way around. 

There are however those who enter the place that exit it with tales of something paranormal happening to them. It is the usual stuff of seeing apparition where there are suppose to be none as well as hearing strange sounds and having the feeling of being watched as the room gets colder. 

So what do we think? Is Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital haunted or just plain spooky?

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