The haunted history of a former mental health hospital in Yorkshire lives on with sightings and stories of paranormal activities
Inside a ward of West Riding Paupers Lunatic Asylum: Caretaker Michael of Parklands Manor - the former site of Stanley Royd HospitalSarah Cobham, who campaigned for the plaque through her Forgotten Women of Wakefield project, suspects that spirits may live on at the grounds. She said: “That amount of pain and unhappiness in life would be hard to rest in death.
Perhaps I know so much about the history of this place that it resonated more. Since the hospital closed, patients have been moved to nearby Fieldhead Hospital which itself has been running since 1972. Stanley Royd’s iconic museum, formerly known as the Stephen G Beaumont Museum set up in 1974, has also moved to Fieldhead since Stanley Royd’s closure and is now known as the Mental Health Museum.
Stories about the hospital vary from it being “revolutionary” in mental health care while being draconian compared to today, to a scary place where any of society's so-called misfits were locked away for indefinite periods. The friendly caretaker Michael directs me to the dusty corner where an old bicycle is stationed. It was here he and the cleaner saw the orbs, the floating balls of light.
I didn’t see anything but I felt it. “Some people can sense it, I can’t but I know what I’ve seen,'' said Michael. Once we’d come back out into daylight, Michael pointed out a tunnel at the other side of the building but I’m told that’s just pitch black. I was drawn to the iconic bell tower where Mary Heaton’s plaque is sharing her story.
It reminded me how important it is that we remember the individual voices in hospital’s and society which rarely get heard. Whatever you believe about the former hospital grounds being haunted, the incredible heritage of this place lives on.