Here are some KCL ghost stories that are bound to keep you up at night

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2 months ago | UPDATED 1 month ago

The life of a King’s student is full to the brim of nightmarish experiences. The avalanche of mid-semester deadlines, for example, or sweaty, shirtless rugby boys in Guy’s Bar, and the cost of a pint when you venture beyond Dover Castle.

It’s hard to believe that there could be anything more teeth-chattering than this terrifying trio, but the ghost stories below suggest differently.

So, as we approach Halloween, here are four KCL legends that will certainly get you in the spooky spirit.

The ghost of Guy’s Hospital

Bad news for med students – Guy’s Hospital is haunted.

The hospital is said to be home to the ghost of a nurse in 19th-century uniform.

In the late 1960s, patients and staff heard the sound of footsteps pacing the hall, and witnesses reported seeing her place a ghostly hand on patients’ shoulders for reassurance.

No one has yet been able to identify her name or history, however, and creepy as the “Guy’s Ghost” may be, she seems to mean well.

Chills in Chancery Lane

For those who enjoy a late-night study session at Maughan, it is highly advisable that you stick to Temple when you catch your tube home. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

During the 1960s, tube drivers would often be alarmed as they stopped at signals by the sudden presence of a man standing next to them in the cab. Witnesses felt he was some sort of ghostly crewman, staring straight ahead into the tunnel. As soon as the train pulled away, however, he would disappear.

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Here we have another tube station horror story, this time based in popular King’s student living area, Elephant and Castle.

One story claims that the last train of the night on the Bakerloo Line is haunted by the “vanishing woman”.

This lone girly walks from the last carriage all the way to the front of the train, vanishing (as the name suggests) once she gets there.

Others claim that the sound of sprinting footfall echoes around the Northern Line in the station once it’s shut for the night, as well as slamming doors. Upon investigation, however, a non-supernatural source for these disturbances has never been found. Spooky.

The London Bridge plague pit

Just outside London Bridge station (and eerily close to Guy’s campus), builders unearthed a collection of skeletons in an old tomb during construction work to open popular tourist attraction, “The London Bridge Experience”.

The area that the bones were found in is known to have been used as a plague pit, but it may also have once been the site of a cemetery for Southwark Cathedral.

The vault that the skeletons were found in was sealed, and workers made multiple reports of tools going missing whilst they were outside having a cigarette once the tomb had been unearthed. We can only pray that these disturbed ghosts do not figure out how to cross a few roads and unleash havoc on GB.

Ancient burial ground turned student accom

In terms of facts, I’m glad I didn’t know this when I lived there in first year as the revelation that Great Dover Street Apartments was built on an ancient Roman burial ground would keep me up at night.

Most interestingly, during excavations of the site in the 1990s, archaeologists discovered the partial skeleton of a Romano-British woman. Her grave contained a cremated remains dated as early as the second century AD, with only a fragment of pelvis left to determine that the burial pit belonged to a woman in her 20s.

Her discovery was announced in the 2000s, and some of the ancient relics buried alongside her, including a lamp with a gladiatorial image, suggest that she may be the first female gladiator to be uncovered.

Though this idea, proposed by some archaeologists at the Museum of London, is speculative and contested by critics, the Great Dover Street woman’s style of burial was still undeniably rare. Slay, girl.

More than anything, I feel sorry for the GDS woman – there are far nicer places to be buried, and I can only hope that her soul still manages to rest well amidst the cacophony of first year flat parties being shut down by angry security guards.