Haunted places
Prisons, hospitals and asylums
Abandoned psychiatric hospitals, tuberculosis sanatoriums and high-security prisons are now favourite destinations for night tours and ghost-hunting shows. Their grim reputation rests on solid ground: thousands of people died within the walls of Eastern State Penitentiary or Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Guards and guides tell of footsteps in empty cells and voices in the corridors. Historians remind us that behind the legends were real victims who are easily forgotten.
- cases
- 28
- years
- 1802–2026
Disputed: 1 Legend: 27
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19th century
- 1802–present The Old Charleston Jail 21 Magazine Street, Charleston, South Carolina, United States For 137 years it held robbers, pirates and alleged slave rebels. Legend says Lavinia Fisher, “America’s first female serial killer,” never left her cell.
- 1829–present Eastern State Penitentiary – a Prison of Solitude Eastern State Penitentiary, Fairmount, Philadelphia, United States The world's first prison built around total isolation now stands in ruins – and guards and visitors hear whispers and footsteps in its empty cellblocks.
- 1830–present Port Arthur – Ghosts of a Penal Colony Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania, Australia A former penal settlement for the most defiant convicts is said to be Australia's most haunted place – with its parsonage, Separate Prison and Isle of the Dead.
- 1832–present The Quarantine Station at North Head, Manly Q Station, North Head, Manly, New South Wales, Australia For 152 years, people with smallpox, plague and Spanish flu were isolated here at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. Today it is a hotel with ghost tours by night.
- 1838–present Cape Coast Castle – the Slave Dungeons and the Grave of L.E.L. Cape Coast Castle, Cape Coast, Ghana In the dungeons where enslaved Africans waited for the ships stands a shrine to a sea deity, and in the courtyard lies a poet whose death still raises questions.
- 1845–present Old Melbourne Gaol Old Melbourne Gaol, Russell Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia In the gaol where Ned Kelly was hanged, security guards hear cell doors slam at night and the jangle of keys no one is holding.
- 1854–present Adelaide Gaol and Governor Ashton's Footsteps Adelaide Gaol, Thebarton, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia In Adelaide's old gaol, the first governor's footsteps are said to be heard, while the hangman Ben Ellis and the executed Fred Carr still walk the corridors.
- 1864–present The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston Weston, West Virginia, United States A giant stone mental hospital built for 250 patients once held more than 2,400. Today night-time tours search its wards for the ghosts of patients.
- 1867–present Beechworth's Mayday Hills Asylum Former Mayday Hills Asylum, Beechworth, Victoria, Australia One of Victoria's largest former psychiatric hospitals, open for 128 years, becomes the setting for ghost tours after dark.
- 1869–present The Ottawa Jail and the Ghost of Patrick Whelan Former Carleton County Gaol, 75 Nicholas Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Convicted of killing D'Arcy McGee, he protested his innocence to the end. He was hanged in public in 1869, and his ghost is said to roam the cells of today's hostel.
- 1884–present Seacliff Asylum, Otago Truby King Reserve, Seacliff, Otago, New Zealand The forest growing over the ruins of what was once New Zealand's largest building – an asylum where 37 women died in a fire in 1942 – is said to be haunted.
- 1887–present J Ward – Ararat's Gaol and Asylum J Ward, Ararat, Victoria, Australia A gold-rush gaol later turned into a ward for the ‘criminally insane’ in Ararat is said to be one of the most haunted places in Victoria.
- 1896–present The Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield Mansfield, Ohio, United States The castle-like prison made famous by “The Shawshank Redemption” operated for almost a century. Night tours hunt for the ghosts of inmates and a warden’s wife.
- 1898–present Beelitz-Heilstätten – an Abandoned Sanatorium near Berlin Beelitz-Heilstätten, Brandenburg, Germany A huge former sanatorium where Hitler was treated and a Soviet military hospital later operated has become a magnet for ghost hunters and urban explorers.
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1900–1909
- 1900–present Lecumberri, Mexico City's Black Palace Palacio de Lecumberri (General Archive of the Nation), Venustiano Carranza, Mexico City, Mexico Mexico's former ‘Black Palace’ prison now houses the national archives – and its staff tell of the ghost of ‘Don Jacinto’.
- 1909–present Fremantle Prison and the Face of Martha Rendell Fremantle Prison, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia In the chapel of Fremantle's convict-built prison, the face of Martha Rendell – the last woman hanged in Western Australia – is said to appear in a stained-glass window.
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1910–1919
- 1913–present Boggo Road Gaol and the Ghost of Ernie Austin Boggo Road Gaol, Dutton Park, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia The last man hanged in Queensland was said to torment new prisoners for decades – one of Australia's longest-told prison ghost stories.
- 1918–present The Durán Sanatorium near Cartago Potrero Cerrado, Oreamuno canton, Cartago province, Costa Rica In the ruins of a mountain tuberculosis sanatorium in Costa Rica, the nuns who once cared for the dying are said to walk the corridors at night.
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1920–1929
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1930–1939
- 1934–present Alcatraz – the Ghosts of the Prison on the Rock Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, California, United States In America's most famous prison guards reportedly heard Al Capone's banjo, and tales circulate of a creature with glowing eyes in Cell 14D of D-Block.
- 1939–present The Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital in Owińska Former psychiatric hospital in the old Cistercian convent, Owińska near Poznań, Poland From a former hospital whose more than one thousand patients were murdered by the Germans in 1939, a child's crying and footsteps are said to be heard in empty wards.
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1940–1949
- 1942–present Lawang Sewu – the Thousand Doors of Semarang Lawang Sewu, Tugu Muda square, Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia The colonial railway headquarters in Semarang, where Japan's military police jailed and tortured people in the basements, is said to be Indonesia's most haunted building.
- 1942–present The Ruins of Zofiówka in Otwock Former “Zofiówka” sanatorium, Kochanowskiego Street, Otwock, Poland In a ruined sanatorium for Jewish psychiatric patients, whose patients were murdered by the Germans in 1942, visitors report figures seen in the windows.
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1950–1959
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1960–1969
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1990–1999
- c. 1996–2018 Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital Gonjiam-eup, Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea CNN called this abandoned hospital near Seoul one of the freakiest places on the planet. After the 2018 horror film Gonjiam, it was torn down.
- 1996–present Crumlin Road Gaol, the prison its ghosts never left Crumlin Road Gaol, 53–55 Crumlin Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom Over 150 years, 17 men were hanged in the Belfast jail. Since it closed in 1996, staff and visitors have told of footsteps and shadows on the landings.
- 1997–present Old Changi Hospital, Singapore Old Changi Hospital, Changi, Singapore An abandoned hilltop hospital in Changi, once wartime barracks, is regarded as the most haunted place in Singapore.