_____________________________________________________________________
General
Stotfold was once a place where livestock were folded whilst on their way to the markets of London from the towns to the north. Its history goes back to at least the Domesday Book when it was called Stodfald (Old English meaning ‘stud-fold’). At one time the village boasted four cornmills as well as twenty public houses.
_____________________________________________________________________
Fairfield Hospital
Jenny Butterworth, who worked at Fairfield hospital for fifteen years, remembers vividly many of her paranormal experiences. A few months after she first started work she had to move a wheelchair from the dining area to a dormitory. When she returned with another wheelchair the first had moved so that it was over four metres away beside a partition. She was puzzled as to how this had happened but thought little of it and moved the two chairs back together. This was at 07:00 and the start of her shift. When she returned, shortly after, both chairs had been moved far apart with no sound being made. She thought an assistant was playing tricks on her but when she enquired she was told she would “soon get used to this sort of thing happening”.
In another incidence during an evening in 1993 she had had to take a patient to the Lister Hospital in Stevenage. When she returned it was 02:00. Whilst in reception the sliding window suddenly opened by itself. When the night receptionist, Fred, walked in she told him what had happened and he said that it was the ghost. To demonstrate he told her to put her keys on the counter then went off to answer a telephone call. Jenny looked away for a few seconds and when she turned back her keys were gone. When Fred returned he showed her where they were, in the correct place on the key rack. “There’s always someone sitting there” said Fred, “some people see him, others don’t.”
Mary, a new nurse spending her first night on the geriatric ward, volunteered to make the hot drinks. She went off to the kitchen then realised she had forgotten one of the orders. She called through the hatch “did you want tea or coffee?” and a voice replied “Tea, with two sugars”. Mary was very surprised when the nurse arrived and said she wanted coffee with one sugar. She had heard Mary call but could not make out the words so she had come to the kitchen to find out what she wanted. There were no other people around and the nurse hadn’t passed anyone on the way to the kitchen. On other occasions Mary was in the kitchen alone when someone tried the door handle. When Mary opened the door there was no one there.
To view a map of the area click on the button below
Stotfold, Fairfield Hospital
|