Ghosts | Ghosts

Aberdeen

Ghosts Home >> Haunted >> Aberdeen >> The White Dove Hotel

---

The White Dove Hotel

The White Dove Hotel in Aberdeen has been demolished, but the story of its haunting is well known. One of the guests at the hotel had fallen sick. The woman was an actress, apparently, and her name was Miss Vining. She had become quite ill shortly after her arrival at the hotel. When a doctor was called to examine her, he decided that she was suffering from a rare disease, thought to be tropical in origin. The patient’s condition grew worse and was causing concern. The doctor pronounced that she required constant care, so a nurse was called in to attend to her.

The nurse noticed a strange, eerie atmosphere in the room when she arrived, but put it down to the condition of her patient and the stormy weather raging outside. Miss Vining was too ill to speak, so the nurse spent some time attending to practicalities, monitoring her patient’s condition and assuring her comfort, and then settled in a chair beside the bed to wait quietly beside her, reading.

After a while something made the nurse look up. Her eyes passed over her sleeping patient and came to rest on another chair at the opposite side of the bed. There, seated quietly, was the figure of a small girl. It was hard to make out the child’s features, for she was wearing a large hat. The first reaction of the nurse was to protestwit the child: how and why had she come into the sickroom without per mission? But as the nurse rose from her seat, the child raised a hand to motion her back. The child seemed to be possessed of some strange power, for the nurse found that she could not move any farther. The nurse then tried to turn to her patient, who was showing some signs of distress. Once again, she found she was unable to move. It was a very strange feeling. She sat back in her chair, and although she ha not been feeling tired at all, she could not prevent herself from falling asleep.

When the nurse woke up, the child had gone, but Miss iningW delirious with a raging fever and needed attention. The nurse, tha fully, was now able to rise and care for her. When morning came, nurse told the doctor about the child who had been in the room. He gave strict instructions that Miss Vining was too ill to be visited by anyone. The following night, he said, the nurse was to lock the door behind her when she took up her post by her patient’s bedside. The nurse did as she was told. The next night she made absolutely sure that she was alone in the room with Miss Vining. Then she locked the door firmly behind her, ready to start her shift.

Miss Vining was comfortable and peaceful, so the nurse sat by her bed for a while. She nodded off for a few moments, and when she stirred she saw the little girl in the room, just as before. Once again, when she tried to shoo the child away, the little girl raised her hand and the nurse was unable to do a thing. She was virtually paralysed. Miss Vining’s condition grew markedly worse, and the nurse was distressed to see this, but the child still held her under some sort of spell. There was nothing she could do to help her patient. At length, after what seemed to be an interminable time, watching helplessly as Miss Vining tossed and moaned in her delirium, the nurse saw the child rise from her seat and make for the window.

Finding that she was free to move, the nurse made a grab for the little girl, knocking her hat from her head. To her horror, she saw that the girl’s face was that of a corpse. She was an Indian child and had obviously been very beautiful, but it was clear that her throat had been cut and now her face was twisted in death. The nurse fainted. When the nurse came round, the child had gone and Miss Vining Was dead. Afterwards, when hotel staff were packing up the belong ings of the deceased, it is said that they found a photograph of a child, Which the nurse identified as being the same child she had seen in ghostly form. On the back of the photograph were written these words: aft May God forgive us.’ Nobody could find out any more, for er the death of Miss Vining, the little girl was never seen again. Fife | Aberdeen | Boxley | Chesterfield | Connemara | Cornwall | Hampshire | Kiveton | Lanark | Lancashire | Lincoln | Lowestoft | lreland | Room 3 | Royal Hotel | Scotland | Scotland |