The old mental asylum....
This happened to myself and a friend when we were about 10 years old. We both lived on a small estate which was built next to a Victorian mental asylum. Not a modern one where you would have to be sectioned to end up there, but a setup whereby typical residents of the late 19th and early 20th Century would be the homeless, women with PND and illegitimate children as well as societies mis-fits...who would then be subjected to infusions of Lithium and ECT.

The place was pretty much abandoned in the early 1980's and large areas of the complex were disused - which made a great opportunity for exploring and generally being nosey kids...

Anyway, this place also had maternity ward which served the non-interred local town and community. This was seperate from the rest of the grounds and had been closed - Save for the fact that it housed some Vietnamese Boat people in the early 80's, this was abandoned too...

My friend and I would often play around in the old buildings - the dark corridors were particularly scary but not often ventured down with less than 3 of us....On this dull Saturday morning there were just the two of us.

Anyhow, we cycled to the abandoned grounds and jumped through a window into a small square building about 25ft square - probably the old boilerhoue, and were routing around the floor for nuts and bolts and stuff. As we were doing this I had this sense that I needed to look up - so I did - and there, on the ceiling was this figure, looking straight down as the two of us.....

Oddly, Compared to the other stories posted, I can describe exactly what I saw - It was a tall man, in full victorian formal dress (dinner jacket, suit trousers, and cloak) almost like a stagecoach driver with a long face and staring right down at us - with burning red eyes....

The thing that scares me the most about this is that its all very well that we saw this figure, but I really got the sense that this thing knew we were there, and it was looking straight at me - thats the bit which has unnerved me the most over the years...

Anyhow, my friend and I had seen this thing (we subseequently described what we saw identically) and screamed like hell. The problem was, we had come through a window - and there was no door (I think it had been bricked up). We both went for the window - only one of us could get out at a time.

My friend got there first and I can tell you the most terrifying feeling is knowing that there is something behind you, which seems to know you are there, and being unable to get out - thats the worst bit.

So. We both make it out of the window and run like hell, leaving our bikes behind - straight back home where our respective fathers drag us back to collect our bikes - look in the building, on the ceiling etc - nothing.

I can tell you it really messed up my sleeping patterns for months, parents taking me to the docs etc and I'm still unnerved by the dark now.

Since this happened, the old maternity ward has been levelled and turned into a new housing estate. The only thing I have learnt since then is that the site is next to a road called 'Green Lane' which is a REALLY old road - going back hundreds of years and would have been a main thoroughfare for stagecoaches a couple of hundred years ago...

Have I seen anything since? - No - But I really do think that some people are predisposed to seeing this sort of stuff - I just happened to be with someone who did.
(ferris_b, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 13:21, Reply)