But The Judge’s Room Was Empty, Eaglestone

Tonight’s story takes us to a setting that might be hard for some: a residential care home for people living with dementia and other complex needs. It also touches on grief, and on personal bereavement.

If that’s something you’d rather not sit with right now, I completely understand—feel free to skip this one. I thought long and hard before including it, not only because of the setting, but because hospitals and medical spaces have become difficult places for me too.

My husband Jef’s journey with cancer was, in some ways, mercifully short—but in others, it was brutally cruel. Walking that road by his side, at least as far as I could go, has left me with a deep aversion to doctors, hospitals, and anything even remotely clinical. If you feel the same—I get it. Truly.

But the story Anne shared stayed with me. And I want to pass it on to you.

You might remember Anne from the fancy dress phantom story that helped launch this whole project. When we spoke again, she paused midway through another memory, a little tentative.
“I don’t want to drive you mad,” she said, “but I’ve just remembered another one.”
I told her, as warmly as I could, that I’d be glad to hear as many stories as she wanted to share. And so she took me back—back to the early days of her working life, at a care home in Eaglestone.

It was run by Westminster Health then, just behind Milton Keynes Hospital. These days, it’s Ashby House, part of the Barchester group, offering assisted living and dementia care. From their website, it looks like a genuinely supportive place, filled with enriching activities and a focus on celebrating life.

But years ago, when Anne was a healthcare assistant there, she had an experience that never left her.

It happened one evening on a late shift. The team were settling residents in for the night, some heading off to their rooms, others still watching television in the communal lounge. The building was laid out in a square, with a central lounge and corridors looping around it. As Anne stood in the main room with one of the residents, she happened to glance down the hallway.

That’s when she saw her.

“An elderly lady,” Anne said. “Walking slowly along the corridor. She turned the corner, and went straight into a resident’s room.”

Nothing unusual—except that no one should’ve been walking that corridor at the time.

Anne followed quickly. “It only took me a minute to get round there,” she said. “But when I got to the room, there was no one inside.”

She checked the en suite bathroom. Empty. No sign of anyone having come or gone. “They couldn’t have slipped out that fast. I would’ve seen them.”

She reported it to the nurse in charge, a kind, devout man who responded in a way Anne hadn’t expected.

“He was so shaken, he started praying,” she told me. “It really got to him.”

Anne tried to calm him. “I said, the dead can’t hurt you. It’s probably just someone who passed away here.” In a place like that, death was a familiar visitor. But even so—this was different.

“I saw her clearly,” she said. “From the back, she looked exactly like one of our ladies. Walking just like them. But I was with the resident whose room it was. It couldn’t have been her.”

Anne knew that the room belonged to a long-term resident—a former High Court judge. “Immaculate,” she said. “Beautifully dressed, dignified, elegant.” And very much alive.

To this day Anne still wonders who it was.

When Anne shared the name of the care home, and I checked it on the map, I felt a jolt. Ashby House is right behind Milton Keynes Hospital—where Jef spent much of his final illness. He did come home in the end, and I’ll always be grateful for that, but those months made their mark. I’d been past the hospital many times since, but never quite that close.

Still, I didn’t want to let the story sit. So once I’d finished work for the day, I walked straight there. I knew that if I put it off, I might never go.

Ashby House stands at the top of a slow, rising road, and the hospital car park borders the pavement on one side. Funny the things that bring memories rushing in. I caught sight of the metal mesh fencing and suddenly I was back in one of those terrible days—watching people walk past on this very path and envying them whatever version of a normal day they were having.

And now, here I was, on the other side.

There’s a circular flowerbed in front of the home, filled with lavender. I don’t know if it was there in Anne’s day, but today, it filled the air with that familiar, nostalgic scent that always feels timeless. I took my photographs, then turned toward the Redway—the safe path home. I’d done it. I could come home, write this up, mark the Eaglestone grid square as ‘occupied’. Job done.

On the walk back, I found myself thinking about the question that’s been on my mind a lot lately: how much of myself should I put into these stories?

Would people prefer just the facts? After all, you’re probably here for the ghosts—not my grief. (If you have a strong feeling either way, do let me know...)

But I’ve come to realise that the stories people tell me are often deeply personal too. In some cases, they’re being told for the very first time. Not secrets, exactly—but memories that surface only when someone asks the right question in the right way. And maybe that’s what I’m really here to do.

To ask. To listen. To honour the telling.

We’re building a map together, yes—but not just of strange happenings and haunted paths. We’re building a map of meaning, too. A space where even difficult memories can find a welcome. A space where they’ll be honoured, not judged.

I needed that space today.

And I hope, in some quiet way, that you found something in it too.

Thank-you to Anne for trusting me with your story again 🙂 and thank YOU for reading!
If you have a story of your own to share, I’d really love to hear it.