A Look at the Extremely Haunted St. Thomas Hospital

St. Thomas Hospital (originally called Shaw Heath Hospital) in Stockport, England, is known to be one of the most haunted buildings in all of the United Kingdom.

The building opened its doors in 1841 and has a pretty dark history. Prior to becoming a psychiatric hospital (which treated thousands of psychiatric patients), it was a former workhouse called “The Grubber” that accommodated almost 700 inmates but the conditions were exceptionally brutal – so much so that it was reported in 1894 for its awful conditions. According to the reports, the management of the workhouse was “completely without plan or method” and the workers were “packed in like sardines”.

The building closed its doors for good in 2004 and is now abandoned but it is certainly not empty. It has a long history of paranormal activity where a “ghost doctor” is one of the numerous alleged spirits haunting the location. When Jamie-Leigh Brown was walking around the building back in 2015, she snapped a photo of what appeared to be the apparition of a doctor wearing a long white coat and a face mask. She also experienced the sounds of unexplained footsteps and shuffling above her head which didn’t make sense as there weren’t any working staircases to get to the upper floors. (A picture of the ghostly doctor can be seen here.)

The doctor isn’t the only ghost roaming around the hospital as visitors to the location have witnessed a female apparition who has been described as being a “radiant woman dressed as a nurse or a nun”. Another male apparition has been seen in one of the old offices in the building. And the mortuary is said to be haunted by a man who was cut open on the slab while he was still alive.

Additional paranormal activity includes people feeling uneasy; hearing unexplained noises; and objects mysteriously being thrown.

With so much unexplained activity and alleged spirits roaming around, it’s not surprising that a ghostly doctor was captured in a photograph. And the fact that the building had less-than-ideal work conditions for inmates as well as thousands of psychiatric patients being treated there, it’s very possible that many of them have remained there after death. This is definitely one creepy location.

Pictures from inside of the hospital can be seen here and here.