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When an NHS hospice calls in an exorcist, you know something unusual is happening. That’s exactly what occurred at Priscilla Bacon Lodge in Norwich, where staff and patients have reported repeated sightings of a small child in a bright red dress moving through the corridors. The case has sparked intense debate about paranormal activity in medical settings and drawn parallels to other haunted hospitals across Britain.
What makes this case particularly intriguing is the theory proposed by paranormal investigators that the spirit may have “moved” from an abandoned children’s hospital to the modern hospice facility. But is there a supernatural explanation, or could something far more ordinary be at play?
From Jenny Lind to Priscilla Bacon: A Century of Care
The story of this haunting begins long before the current hospice opened its doors. The site at Colman Hospital carries over a century of medical history, dating back to the nineteenth-century Jenny Lind Children’s Hospital, which provided care for young patients throughout the Victorian era and beyond.
The original Priscilla Bacon Lodge opened in 1979 on Unthank Road in Norwich as an NHS hospice, the result of a major fundraising appeal led by Priscilla, Lady Bacon. For decades, it served as a palliative care facility for Norfolk residents. The hospice relocated to a purpose-built facility on an eight-acre site next to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, with construction beginning in 2022 and the first patients admitted in September 2023.
King Charles III officially opened the new building in October 2023, marking a new chapter for the hospice. The original Unthank Road site was retained by the NHS for other medical purposes. Yet it’s this modern facility, with its bright corridors and contemporary design, that has become the centre of one of Britain’s most talked-about recent hauntings.
The Girl in the Red Dress Appears
Multiple news outlets have documented the unusual events at Priscilla Bacon Lodge. Staff members have reported seeing a small child wearing a bright red dress moving through different areas of the hospice building. The Telegraph noted that these weren’t isolated incidents but repeated sightings by different staff members, creating a consistent pattern of reports.
The phenomena extended beyond visual sightings. Staff and patients experienced unexplained noises echoing through the corridors, objects apparently moving on their own, and an atmosphere that left some witnesses, according to reports, “frightened out of their wits” and “extremely disturbed.” The activity was persistent enough that it couldn’t simply be dismissed or ignored.
What followed was extraordinary for an NHS facility. The hospice chaplain contacted the Diocese of Norwich, requesting assistance from a “deliverance team” – clergy trained in what’s commonly known as exorcism work. Coast to Coast AM reported that holy oil was requested for a religious service designed to address the disturbances, marking a rare intersection of modern healthcare and traditional spiritual intervention.
The Standard positioned this as particularly unusual, noting that it’s uncommon for an NHS trust to formally engage religious practitioners for paranormal activity. The case highlights how seriously the situation was taken by those experiencing it, regardless of scepticism from outside observers.
The apparition itself has been described consistently across multiple accounts. Witnesses report a small girl in a bright red dress – not a faded or period costume, but a vivid, eye-catching garment. She’s been seen in different parts of the building, suggesting movement through the facility rather than a residual haunting tied to one specific location.
Did She Come From the Abandoned Hospital?
Paranormal investigator Sam Howett (also spelled Howitt in some reports) has publicly proposed an intriguing theory about the haunting’s origins. Speaking on TalkTV, Howett suggested that the spirit of a child connected to the former Jenny Lind Children’s Hospital may have “moved” from the abandoned building to the active hospice.
His theory rests on several assumptions about how hauntings work. Howett argues that when the children’s hospital fell quiet and was eventually abandoned, any spiritual presence there may have been drawn to the emotional energy and concentrated human attention at the neighbouring hospice. He frames palliative care facilities as places of intense emotion, grief, and focused care – exactly the kind of environment that could, in his view, attract or “pull in” paranormal activity.
This concept challenges traditional ghost lore, which typically depicts spirits as bound to specific locations. Instead, Howett’s interpretation aligns with theories about intelligent hauntings – spirits that respond to and follow human witnesses rather than remaining fixed to bricks and mortar. According to this framework, the child spirit didn’t necessarily move physically, but rather shifted its focus and manifestation from the empty hospital to the busy hospice where human attention and emotional energy were concentrated.
The theory has a certain narrative appeal. It connects the historical children’s hospital with contemporary reports, providing a backstory that explains why a child would haunt a modern palliative care facility. It also taps into the emotionally charged nature of hospice work, where death, grief, and profound human experiences occur daily.
However, it’s worth noting that this remains entirely speculative. There’s no documented historical case of a specific child dying at Jenny Lind Hospital whose spirit could be identified as the apparition. The connection is interpretive, built on the assumption that spirits exist and can move between locations based on emotional currents – assumptions not everyone shares.
Ghost or Schoolgirl? The Sceptical View
Not everyone is convinced by the paranormal explanation. The Telegraph’s science writers have pointed out a detail that might explain the entire mystery: Colman Infant School sits approximately 350 feet from the hospice.
The school’s summer uniform includes a bright red gingham dress and scarlet jumpers – exactly matching the description of the “ghost” child’s clothing. The Telegraph suggests that staff may have glimpsed living schoolgirls visiting relatives at the hospice or simply playing near the grounds. Distance, lighting conditions, and the power of suggestion could transform an ordinary sighting into a ghost story.
This explanation accounts for several aspects of the reports. Multiple sightings would make sense if children in red uniforms regularly pass by or visit the site. The consistency of the red dress description doesn’t necessarily point to the supernatural – it could simply reflect the school uniform worn by many different children over time. The fleeting nature of the sightings, with the figure appearing and disappearing, fits with children moving quickly through areas or being glimpsed briefly through windows.
The psychological element shouldn’t be underestimated either. The hospice sits on the site of a former children’s hospital, creating a context that primes people to make certain connections. When staff members know this history and then see a child in red, their minds may fill in gaps, turning an ambiguous experience into a coherent haunting narrative. This kind of pareidolia and expectation is well-documented in paranormal research.
Environmental factors could also play a role. Shadows, reflections in glass, peripheral vision limitations, and fatigue among overworked hospice staff might all contribute to misidentifications. Add the emotional weight of working in palliative care, where staff regularly encounter death and grief, and the psychological conditions for experiencing unusual phenomena become clearer.
Yet sceptics must also account for the intensity and persistence of the reports. Would multiple trained healthcare professionals repeatedly mistake living children for ghosts? Would the disturbances – unexplained noises and moving objects – all have mundane explanations? The sceptical view is compelling, but it requires dismissing a lot of witness testimony from presumably credible observers.
Why These Stories Catch Fire
The Priscilla Bacon Lodge case has all the ingredients for a viral paranormal story in 2026. An NHS hospice – a modern, institutional setting – provides a counterpoint to the usual Gothic castles and Victorian mansions typically associated with hauntings. The involvement of an exorcist adds drama and officiality to the claims, suggesting the situation was serious enough to warrant formal religious intervention.
The figure itself is powerfully evocative. A child in a bright red dress is visually striking and emotionally resonant. Children feature prominently in ghost lore worldwide, often representing innocence lost or lives tragically cut short. The red dress adds a splash of colour to what might otherwise be a grey, clinical environment, making the apparition memorable and distinctive.
Social media has amplified the story significantly. Facebook posts and broadcast media coverage have spread the tale far beyond Norfolk, reaching audiences who might never have heard of Priscilla Bacon Lodge otherwise. Each retelling adds layers, with some emphasising the supernatural elements while others focus on the sceptical explanations.
The case also fits broader cultural trends. Britain has a rich tradition of hospital hauntings, from abandoned asylums to active care facilities. Stories of child ghosts appear regularly in paranormal literature, often linked to tragic historical events. The Priscilla Bacon Lodge haunting updates these traditional narratives for a contemporary setting, showing how ghost stories continue to evolve and adapt.
There’s also something deeply unsettling about hauntings in places meant for healing. Hospitals and hospices are where we confront mortality most directly, making them psychologically charged environments. When paranormal reports emerge from such settings, they touch on our deepest anxieties about death, suffering, and what might lie beyond.
The Evidence Question
One frustration for researchers is the lack of concrete evidence. Unlike some famous hauntings with photographic documentation or recorded EVP sessions, the Priscilla Bacon Lodge case rests primarily on witness testimony. No images of the red-dressed girl have emerged publicly, and no audio or video recordings have been shared to substantiate the claims.
This absence of documentation is notable in an age when nearly everyone carries a camera in their pocket. If staff members have encountered this apparition multiple times, why hasn’t anyone captured it on film? Believers might argue that paranormal phenomena are notoriously difficult to document, that spirits manifest only briefly, or that the emotional intensity of the moment prevents people from thinking to record. Sceptics would counter that the lack of evidence supports the mundane explanation – there’s nothing to photograph because witnesses are glimpsing living children, not ghosts.
The reports of poltergeist-like activity – objects moving and unexplained noises – are similarly undocumented. These phenomena, if genuine, should theoretically be easier to capture than a fleeting visual apparition. The absence of such evidence raises questions about the nature and frequency of the disturbances.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The Priscilla Bacon Lodge case remains unresolved. The hospice continues to operate, providing essential palliative care to Norfolk residents. Whether the reported phenomena have ceased following the deliverance team’s intervention, whether they continue but are simply no longer discussed publicly, or whether they were misidentifications all along, we may never know with certainty.
For believers in the paranormal, the case offers a compelling modern haunting with multiple witnesses and unusual circumstances. The theory of a spirit moving from an abandoned hospital to an active care facility adds a contemporary twist to traditional ghost lore. The involvement of church officials suggests the experiences were taken seriously by institutional authorities, lending credibility to the reports.
For sceptics, the schoolgirl explanation provides a rational alternative that accounts for the core evidence without requiring supernatural intervention. The psychological factors – expectation, suggestion, stress, and the emotionally charged environment of hospice care – offer additional context for understanding how ordinary experiences might be interpreted as paranormal.
Perhaps the most honest position is uncertainty. We can acknowledge the sincerity of the witnesses while questioning whether their experiences necessarily point to the supernatural. We can explore both paranormal and mundane explanations without committing fully to either. The Priscilla Bacon Lodge haunting, like many ghost stories, may ultimately tell us more about ourselves – our fears, our hopes, and our relationship with death – than about any objective reality of spirits.
What’s clear is that the story has captured public imagination, joining the ranks of Britain’s most discussed contemporary hauntings. Whether you view it as evidence of life after death or as a case study in how ghost stories emerge and spread in the social media age, the girl in the red dress has earned her place in Norfolk’s paranormal folklore.
Visiting Priscilla Bacon Lodge
The hospice is an active healthcare facility providing palliative care, not a tourist attraction. Public access is limited to patients, their families, and authorised visitors. Ghost tourism or curiosity visits would be inappropriate and disruptive to the essential work happening there.
If you’re interested in paranormal investigation at medical facilities, Britain offers numerous abandoned hospitals and asylums that conduct organised ghost tours and investigation events. These provide opportunities to explore similar phenomena in settings specifically opened for that purpose.
For those fascinated by the intersection of healthcare settings and paranormal reports, the Priscilla Bacon Lodge case serves as a starting point for broader questions about why such stories emerge, how they spread, and what they reveal about our cultural attitudes toward death, grief, and the possibility of something beyond the material world.