Borley Rectory was a Victorian era mansion located in the village of
BorleyBorley is a village and civil parish in Essex, England. It is located on the River Stour, approximately 3 km northwest of Sudbury, Suffolk and is 39km north-northeast from the county town of Chelmsford. The village is in the district of Braintree and in the parliamentary constituency of Saffron...
,
EssexEssex is a county in the East of England region of the United Kingdom. The county town of Essex is Chelmsford.-History:In pre-Roman Britain the territories of Suffolk and Essex were home to the Trinovantes tribe, which had grown wealthy through intensive trade with the Roman Empire, contemporary...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It was constructed in 1863, on the site of a previous
rectoryA rectory is the residence of a leader of a local Christian church. Many former rectories may still be referred to locally as a rectory once a church or religious organisation has vacated the property....
, and destroyed by fire in 1939.
The house gained a reputation for being
hauntedA haunted house is defined as a house that is believed to be a center for supernatural occurrences or paranormal phenomena. A haunted house may allegedly contain ghosts, poltergeists, or even malevolent entities such as demons....
after a series of residents reported unsettling phenomena. In 1929 the story of Borley was heavily covered by the
Daily Mirror. It was notably investigated by paranormal investigator
Harry PriceHarry Price was a British psychic researcher and author.-Early life:Notwithstanding his claim to be born in Shropshire, Harry was born in Red Lion Square on the site of the South Place Ethical Society's Conway Hall. He was educated in London at Waller Road School and Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham...
in 1937, who described it as 'The Most Haunted House in England', a phrase which caught the imagination of the press. Price wrote two books on the subject, both of which sold well.
History
Borley Rectory was constructed near Borley Church by the Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull in 1862, and he moved in a year after being named
rectorThe word rector has a number of different meanings; they indicate an academic, religious or political administrator...
of the parish. The large brick building was built in a style influenced by
PuginPugin most commonly refers to Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin , English architect and designer.Other members of his family include:...
, replacing the earlier Georgian house built for the previous rector, Reverend Herringham, which Henry Bull demolished. The rectory was eventually enlarged to house a family of fourteen children.
There is evidence for there having been a house on the rectory site before the Herringham rectory. The nearby church dates from the 12th century and serves a rather scattered rural community of the three hamlets that make up the parish. There are several substantial farmhouses, and the fragmentary remains of Borley Hall, once the seat of the Waldegrave family. Ghost-hunters like to quote the legend of a
BenedictineBenedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monasteryMonastery , a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer Monastery (plural: monasteries), a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios...
supposedly built in this area about 1362, according to which a
monkA monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, whilst always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
from the monastery carried on a relationship with a
nunA Nun, or also known as a Sister in some cases, is a woman who has taken special vows committing her to a religious life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
from a nearby
conventA convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
. After their affair was discovered, the monk was executed and the nun bricked up alive in the convent walls. It was confirmed in 1938 that this legend had no historical basis and seems to have been invented by the rector's children to romanticise their gothic-style red-brick rectory.The story of the walling up of the nun was probably taken from a novel by Rider Haggard. . Until the newspaper stories about the ghosts, there had been no mention in the local papers, or any other written source, of anything unusual happening at the rectory. The rectory and the parish gave every appearance of being a typical East Anglian rural parish.
Hauntings
The first alleged
paranormalParanormal is a general term that describes unusual experiences that lack a scientific explanation, or phenomena alleged to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
events for which we have accounts apparently occurred around 1863, since a few locals later remembered hearing unexplained footsteps within the house at about this date. On 28 July 1900, four of the daughters of the rector reported seeing what they thought was the
ghostA ghost has been defined as the disembodied spirit or soul of a deceased person, although in popular usage the term refers only to the apparition of such a person...
of a nun from 40 yards' distance near the house in twilight: they tried to talk to it, but it disappeared as they got closer. The local organist recalled that, at about that date, the family at the rectory were '... very convinced that they had seen an apparition on several occasions'. Various people would claim to witness a variety of puzzling incidents, such as a phantom coach driven by two headless horsemen, through the next four decades. Henry Dawson Ellis Bull died in 1892 and his son, the Reverend Harry Bull, took over the living. In 1911, he married a younger divorcée, Ivy, and the couple moved with her daughter to nearby Borley Place until 1920 (when he took over the rectory), while his unmarried sisters moved to Chilton Lodge a few miles away.
On 9 June 1927, the rector, Harry Bull, died and the rectory again became vacant. In the following year, on 2 October, the Reverend Guy Eric Smith and his wife moved into the home. One day, soon after moving in, Mrs Smith was cleaning out a cupboard when she came across a brown paper package, inside which was the
skullThe skull is a bony structure found in the head of many animals. The skull supports the structures of the face and protects the head against injury....
of a young woman. Shortly after, the family would report a variety of incidents including the sounds of servant
bellsA bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...
ringing (on which the strings had been cut), lights appearing in windows and unexplained footsteps. In addition, Mrs Smith believed she saw a horse-drawn carriage at night. The Smiths contacted
The Daily MirrorThe Daily Mirror is a British tabloid newspaper founded in 1903. Twice in its history, from 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was changed to read simply The Mirror, which is how the paper is usually referred to in popular parlance.- Early years :The Daily Mirror was...
to ask them to put them in touch with the Society for Psychical Research. On 10 June 1929, the newspaper sent a reporter who promptly wrote the first of a series of articles detailing the mysteries of Borley. The paper also arranged for
Harry PriceHarry Price was a British psychic researcher and author.-Early life:Notwithstanding his claim to be born in Shropshire, Harry was born in Red Lion Square on the site of the South Place Ethical Society's Conway Hall. He was educated in London at Waller Road School and Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham...
, a paranormal researcher, to make his first visit to the place that would ultimately make his name famous. He arrived on 12 June. Immediately, objective "phenomena" of a new kind appeared, such as the throwing of stones, a vase and other objects. "Spirit messages" were tapped out from the frame of a mirror. As soon as Harry Price left, these ceased. Mrs Smith later maintained that she then suspected Harry Price, an expert conjurer, of causing the phenomena.
The Smiths left Borley on 14 July 1929 and, after some difficulty in finding a replacement, the Reverend Lionel Foyster, a first cousin of the Bulls, and his wife Marianne moved into the rectory with their adopted daughter Adelaide on 16 October 1930. Lionel Foyster wrote an account of the various strange incidents that happened, which he sent to Harry Price. Price estimated that, between the Foysters' moving in and October 1935, many incidents took place there, including bell-ringing, windows shattering, stones, bottle-throwing and wall-writing, and their daughter was locked in a room with no key. Marianne Foyster reported to her husband a whole range of poltergeist phenomena which included her being thrown from her bed. On one occasion, Adelaide was attacked by "something horrible". Twice, Foyster tried to conduct an
exorcismExorcism is the practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
, but his efforts were fruitless. In the middle of the first, Foyster was struck in the shoulder by a fist-size stone. Because of the publicity in
The Daily Mirror, these incidents attracted much attention at the time from several psychic researchers who investigated, and were unanimous in suspecting that they were caused, consciously or unconsciously, by Marianne Foyster. Mrs Foyster later stated that she felt that some of the incidents were caused by her husband in collaboration with one of the psychic researchers, but other events appeared to her to be genuine paranormal phenomena. Marianne later admitted that she was having a sexual relationship with the lodger, Frank Peerless, and that she used 'paranormal' explanations to cover up her liaisons. The Foysters left Borley as a result of Lionel's ill health.
Price Investigation
Borley remained vacant for some time after the Foysters' departure in May 1937 and Price then took out a year long rental agreement with
Queen Anne's BountyQueen Anne's Bounty was a fund established in 1704 for the augmentation of the incomes of the poorer clergy. In 1890, the total amount distributed was £176,896. The bounty was the revenue from a tax on the Church prior to the Reformation, and from the Crown itself after the Reformation...
: the owners of the property.
Through an advertisement in
The TimesThe Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register....
on 25 May 1937, and subsequent personal interviews, he recruited a corp of 48 "official observers", mostly students, who spent periods, mainly at weekends, at the Rectory with instructions to report any phenomena which occurred. In March 1938, Helen Glanville (the daughter of S J Glanville, one of Price's helpers) conducted a
PlanchetteA planchette is a triangular or heart-shaped board supported by castors which moves to spell out messages, or answer questions. Paranormal advocates believe that the planchette is moved by some extra-normal force. Skeptics attribute the motion to the ideomotor effect...
séanceA séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...
in Streatham in south London. Price reported that Helen Glanville made contact with two spirits. The first was that of a young nun who identified herself as Marie Lairre. She said she had been murdered on the site of Borley Rectory. Her answers were consistent with the story told by the Bull sisters, but a previous seance had identified the nun as Evangeline Westcott. Marie Lairre was, according to the Planchette story, a French nun who left her religious order, married, and came to live in England. The groom was supposedly none other than Henry Waldegrave, the owner of the 17th-century manor house. She claimed to have been murdered in 1667. Price espoused the theory that the ghostly nun who had been seen for generations was Marie Lairre, condemned to wander restlessly as her spirit searched for a holy burial ground. The wall writings were her pleas for help. Despite an enormous amount of work by Mrs Cecil Baines, no trace of any historical evidence for this story was ever found.
The second spirit to be contacted identified himself by the name of "Sunex Amures". He claimed that he would set fire to the rectory at nine o'clock that night. He also said that, at that time, the bones of a murdered person would be revealed. The predictions of Sunex Amures came to pass, in a way, but not that night (27 March 1938). On the 27 March 1939, the new owner of the rectory Captain W.H. Gregson reported that he was unpacking boxes when an
oil lampAn oil lamp is a simple vessel used to produce light continuously for a period of time from an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps commences from prehistory and extends to the present day....
in the hallway overturned. The fire quickly spread, and Borley Rectory was severely damaged. An onlooker said she saw the figure of the ghostly nun in the upstairs window, and, according to Harry Price, demanded a fee for her story. The burning of the rectory was investigated by the insurance company and determined to be fraudulent. Harry Price conducted a brief dig in the cellars of the ruined house and, almost immediately, two bones of a young woman were discovered along with a medal of Saint Ignatius. A subsequent meticulous excavation of the cellars over three years revealed nothing further. The bones were given a Christian burial in Liston churchyard, after the parish of Borley refused to allow the ceremony to take place on account of the local opinion that the bones that were found were those of a pig. The Rector believed that the ceremony would enable the spirit of "Marie Lairre" to go to rest.
Society for Psychical Research investigation
After Harry Price's death in 1948, three members of the English Society for Psychical Research, two of whom had been Price's most loyal associates, investigated his claims about Borley and published their findings in a book,
The Haunting of Borley Rectory, in 1956, which concluded that any evidence for a haunting was hopelessly confused by Harry Price's duplicity. The "Borley Report", as the SPR study has become known, stated that much of the phenomena were either faked or were due to natural causes such as rats and the strange acoustics due to the odd shape of the house. Subsequently, Robert Hastings, an SPR member, discussed several of the charges of duplicity and falsification of evidence made against Price in a paper to the SPR called
An Examination of the "Borley Report", without being able to rebut them convincingly. Hastings's report was never published in book form and is often overlooked.
Further investigations and publications
A short program about Borley Rectory was also commissioned by the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
. It was produced by Joe Burroughs and was scheduled to be broadcast in September 1956, however it was later abandoned due to concerns over a possible action by Marianne Foyster.
Further books on the Rectory hauntings have appeared over the years, including a collaboration in 1973 by ghost-hunter and author
Peter UnderwoodThis article is about the English paranormalist. For the Chief Justice of Tasmania, see Peter Underwood .Peter Underwood FRSA is an English author, broadcaster and paranormalist...
and Paul Tabori entitled
The Ghosts of Borley which were sympathetic to Price's investigations. In 1992 Robert Wood published a study of Marianne Foyster and Borley titled
The Widow of Borley, which was critical of Price, and in 1996 Ivan Banks published
The Enigma of Borley Rectory which supported much of Price's work. The bibliography continues into 2000 with Louis Mayerling's
We Faked The Ghosts of Borley Rectory which, upon investigation, turned out to be fictional; Ted Babbs's
Borley Rectory - The Final Analysis [2003] and
The Borley Rectory Companion [2009] by Paul Adams, Eddie Brazil & Peter Underwood
The final blow to Harry Price's credibility came with the first full independent biography of Harry Price by Richard Morris that exposed him as a cynical confidence trickster who supplemented his income as a paper-bag salesman by posing as an expert in psychic matters. Harry Price portrayed himself as a fearless exposer of false mediums whilst managing to persuade a number of very wealthy patrons to fund his activities. These included the investigation of a supposed
talking mongooseGef the talking mongoose was a talking animal that was reported to inhabit a farmhouse known as Cashen's Gap near the hamlet of Dalby on the Isle of Man...
, communicating with Martians, and attempting to turn a goat into a young man. Borley Rectory proved to be a godsend to him and provided him with rich pickings from his two books on the subject, which must therefore be taken with a pinch of salt.
In 2000 Louis Mayerling wrote and published
We Faked The Ghosts of Borley Rectory, an account that was almost entirely fictional, though presented as fact. It was loosely based on the original story of Borley Rectory.
In 2004
Warner Independent PicturesWarner Independent Pictures was the specialty division of film studio Warner Bros. Entertainment. Established in August 2003, its first release was 2004's Before Sunset...
purchased the rights to a screenplay by Richard Potter which was based on Price's 1940 book about Borley,
The Most Haunted House In England.
See also
- The Amityville Horror
The Amityville Horror - A True Story is a book by Jay Anson, and was published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of films released between 1979 and 2005...
- Another haunted house with similar alleged paranormal activity
External links