In the early part of the nineteenth century this building like many other old hospitals, was a workhouse administered by a group of nuns. Known as `The Borough` it also accommodated a number of sick and dying unable to afford medical treatment. Sometime during those appalling years of poverty and disease one of the sisters allocated to the medical nursing wing accidentally administered an incorrect medicine to an ailing patient, with the result that the sufferer died in agony. This incident so affected the young and inexperienced nun that she committed suicide shortly afterwards by taking an overdose of the same liquid. In June 1972, Kathleen Bury of Chandler Ford, who had been admitted for treatment following an accident to her head, was lying in bed, `waiting for the morning` fully awake, she could hear the gentle sighs and soft moans from fellow patients in the ward and was beginning to feel slightly drowsy. `Suddenly I was fully awake`, she said ` for I saw two figure standing at the bottom of my bed, apparently looking at me. It was too dark to actually distinguish whether they were male or female but I got the impression that they were wearing some form of religious habit. They mad no sound and I was getting slightly concerned, so rang the bell for the night nurse. As I did so, the figures drifted away out of sight`. When the ward-sister arrived Kathleen described the incident and asked who the visitors were. The staff members told the patient that no visitors has entered the ward but the experienced was probably associated with the unusual haunting of the suicide nun accompanied by her patient. It seems that in the early days of ` The Borough` patients able to walk were sometimes given spare cloaks of the nuns to wear as `temporary dressing gowns` and therefore figures would appear identical, `rather like twins`. `There is nothing to worry about though` Kathleen was assured` it means that you are going to get better` Kathleen did and was allowed home a few days later. Since the, on discussing the incident with former patients of the hospital, she has heard that the witnessing of `the ghostly pair of nuns` is not unusual. It is in fact a comforting occurrence.

� Andrew Green