Eerie Events As Ex-Ward is Razed.
By Billy Phillips.
Down at Hawtonville Hospital something stirs, with a tale of ghostly goings-on told this week by a demolition man who heard the type of knocking he did not bargain for. Bloom Demolition and Excavation based at Askham, near Tuxford, is carrying out the demolition work of a redundant building at Hawtonville Hospital [now Newark Hospital] – that was once used as a casual ward for tramps.
Site foreman Mr Nigel Bloom says the building has a strange atmosphere. Hospital general manager Mr David Brotherhood said the demolition was the first step in clearing the way for the new hospital on the site. Site preparation work is scheduled for the autumn with building starting on the £10m project at about this time next year.
Said Mr Brotherhood: “The old building has been unused for some time and has no value, even though it does have something of an interesting early history. We have to clear it because it is in the way of a planned new ward. I am pleased to see it go because it marks the first step on the road to the new building.”
Mr Bloom will also be very pleased to see the old building go. He told the Advertiser: “It is a very very eerie place, and when we first went in it was pitch black. There were doors flapping about off their hinges but there was hardly any wind. Then on another occasion a room suddenly went extremely cold.” He said things then started to disappear including his workmate’s cigarettes and matches and a lump hammer.
More strange happenings followed. According to Mr Bloom, his demolition team was taking up a floor when fluorescent light tubes appeared to be blown across the room, for no apparent reason, and smashed. He said: “I have never known anything like it before.” Mr Bloom said he had heard rumoured sightings of ghosts of two tramps who were once billeted there.
An insight into the history of the old building was provided for the Advertiser by Mr P.J. Enright of Victoria Street, Newark, but he discounted the ghostly theory. Mr Enright’s late parents, Mr and Mrs William Enright, were respectively master and matron at the hospital for 27 years from 1937. The Enright ward was named after them. Mr Enright told the Advertiser: “I have never heard tales of ghosts but it is a very interesting building. It was a casual ward for tramps who roamed the country. They were itinerants and when they were admitted they were given a meal, a bath and clean clothing and in return they were expected to do a day’s work.” […]
Newark Advertiser, 5th February 1993.