The Hauntings at the Borley Rectory:
England is filled with all things ancient and some of the stories of the old houses tell history which reeks of the macabre. One of those many houses spread across the great English landscape was the Borley Rectory. Long demolished in 1944, Borley Rectory was located in the quiet and desolate village of Borley near Sudbury in Essex. No one would have expected that this quiet rectory would have been the site of intense ghostly phenomena but it was. Many people were mystified about the ghostly happenings unsure if they were all true and there were a number who discounted the claims as false and merely hoaxes.
However, many of the unusual events which have been recorded, have been noted by several witnesses and the researcher was merely bringing forth the reality through written documentation tabulating its frightening events. In doing so, he also made known the methods he used in countering the ghostly phenomenon which kept scaring its tenants away. In a number of occasions, the unusual events which followed were also witnessed by credible people like Time Life for instance which had documented the photo of a brick seen in motion.
Constructed in 1863 for Reverend Henry Bull who already had some connections to the family who had set themselves up centuries ago in the same location, the new Borley Rectory was built on the site of an ancient monastery possibly Benedictine in origin. Although considered fabled, you might wonder if the story which emerged as a legend told in the area to explain the hauntings could all well be true. It is your choice to decide given the information a famous ghost researcher uncovered towards the end of the rectory's life in 1943.
The story goes that a young nun fell in love with a Benedictine monk, possibly her teacher, during the 13th century. Over time, their love was discovered. Naturally, it was taboo for a man and woman of the cloth who had pledged solemnity to God to be in love. The monastery soon found out that the lovers planned to run. The monk was executed and the nun, walled up alive in the nearby nunnery at Bures. Since then, the ghost of the nun has been known to do her familiar "Nun's Walk". She has been seen by many of the villagers before the rectory was constructed. It must also be said that the story of the nun and her lover may not be a legend that simply got passed on in time. There is a story that the headless man and the ghost coach which the villagers and the Borley Rectory servants have seen may have a part to play in the lovers' plan to run. A friend of the monk was said to have pitied him and had agreed to help the two lovers escape and he drove a coach. When the love affair was discovered, the punishment was also meted out to the driver of the coach and he was beheaded. That's one of the reasons why one of the ghosts spotted is said to be a headless ghost, possibly that of the driver of the coach looking for his lost head!
And now with the rectory in place overlooking what appears to be her familiar spot for haunting, it seems that the ghost of the nun decided to pay a visit to the very house which seems to enjoy watching her! And so began the saga for the Bull family as the nun became a virtual nuisance peering through windows it seems at their guests who never stayed long enough to enjoy the phenomenon the way Reverend Henry Bull and later, his son pleasured in.
The Bull sisters also began reporting seeing the ghostly nun walking along their front lawn in the light of the day with her head looking down, seemingly bent in sorrow. Sometimes she was spotted standing around the gates of the rectory. The servants eventually gave up ignoring the ghost. She was too real and the house was soon filled with sounds and voices they did not like to hear. The owner had been warned not to build the house on a haunted site. Now, there were rapping and footsteps heard compounded by eerie whispers which they felt was unnerving. Some of them had seen a headless ghost and many were beginning to see the ghostly nun showing herself up frequently. They decided it was too much for them to handle and even more with the sight of a ghostly coach complete with horses stopping in the front of the house! The Bull sisters also shared the same fears but for Henry and his son, Harry, the ghostly nun and her constant prevalence around their rectory had become pure entertainment. It was what they had constructed the rectory for!
Following her increased sightings, the father and son even constructed a summer house to enjoy cigars after dinner and take stock of their lovely phantom nun. It almost became like a game for them to see the phantom nun make her walk. The Bull family's stay in the rectory extended with the son of Henry Bull, Harry Bull, taking over as parson upon his father's death in 1892. He stayed in the house until 1927.
In October 1928 after the house was vacant for close to a year, a Reverend Guy Eric Smith was appointed as the rector for the village of Borley. Harry Bull's successor however had his own ideas about dealing with hauntings of the kind that the Bull family had been enduring for so many years.
He ran out due to the increased hauntings and was not comfortable living in a house that was also moving into a state of disrepair. But it seemed that during the time the Smiths were occupying the house, they had invited a psychic researcher by the name of Harry Price to investigate the ghostly occurrences in the Borley Rectory. They hoped he would have a logical explanation for the occurrences and find a way to stop the haunting. However, at the point of Mr. Price's visit, there arose constant poltergeist activities reported within the house. The activities increased with objects being smashed and stones being thrown.
Price was said to have been accompanied by a journalist and his secretary on his first visit to the rectory. There were interviews conducted with the servants who had seen the ghostly nun including a Mary Pearson who claimed to have seen the ghostly coach and its horses twice. During a séance conducted by Price, they were startled when a soap bar rose with no help. Harry Price, even more intrigued, continued his interviews talking to the servants and even the Bull sisters. After two weeks of his first visit, Harry Price returned to the rectory to engage in more research and managed to document the appearance of a religious medal. However, his continued appearance to the house seemed to have increased more activities in the house. For instance, when he arrived, the bell which was used to summon the servants began ringing frequently. What was disturbing was the bell wires were cut many years ago and the bell should not have rung! That became the ultimate for the reverend and his wife. After two years, the Smiths left the place in July 1929. They were fearful for their lives. The unusual occurrences were increasing in severity and the constant ringing of the bell became a concern.
That however did not stop Harry Price. He wasn't afraid. In fact, he took the additional troubles which followed in the rectory as a challenge and his interest in the Borley Rectory was to remain for many years thereafter. The newspaper had contacted him to continue his investigation in the house and it seemed to be a project he eventually held towards the end. Harry Price was constantly proving to the public to expect the most unexpected ghostly phenomenon possibly never catalogued before.
It was because of Price's intense interest and research methods in the Borley Rectory that standards were set up for what was to become the mode de emploi of the professional ghost hunter. Price for instance created his own kit to indulge himself in his ghostly activities which included tape measures, still cameras as well as remote controlled picture cameras. His preoccupation with the ghostly phenomena in Borley Rectory gave way to the publication of two bestsellers known as the "The Most Haunted House In England" (1940) and "The End of Borley Rectory: Ten Years' Investigation of Borley Rectory" (1946). The research at the Borley Rectory was to reinforce Price's credibility as one of the founding fathers for the foundation of paranormal research.
After the Smiths left the rectory, the search for the next rector continued but the hauntings in the Borley Rectory was said to be constant. Many locals claimed to see unusual happenings like the windows opening and closing even though the place was secured from entry. There were lights reported as well as loud sounds heard around the time of the full moon.
Then in October 1930, a new rector, his wife and their adopted daughter came to stay. They were Reverend Lionel Foyster and his wife Marianne and what was to come thereafter was a sequence of poltergeist events which would grip the couple, tearing the whole house down as the violence grew in intensity.
In their diary, the couple catalogued cases of people being locked in their rooms, windows smashed by objects and the misplacement of household items around the house. The family also reported that furniture was sometimes moved around. The household became horrified and more so when Marianne Foyster was thrown out of her bed one night and slapped by what seemed to be unseen hands. There was also a time when the poor woman was almost suffocated by a mattress. Then the writings began and there were witnesses to this strange event. The couple noticed many messages written on the walls of the house all pleading and seeking the interference of Mrs. Foyster with words like "Marianne, please help get" and "Marianne, light mass prayers". The feeling was of a spirit that was communicating something of Catholic origin. The Foysters decided to take a break and left the rectory for a few days but in June 1931, a family friend of theirs' on checking the house found that the house was messed up with things scattered in many places including glass pieces shattered around. When the family returned, Mrs. Foyster was again subjected to intense hate by the entities and was thrown out of bed three times. Eventually, it came to the understanding of Harry Price and the Foysters that they were dealing with several spirits and not just the ghostly nun. The rectory if anything was attracting the paranormal world and things were getting out of hand!
While the unusual happenings and sometimes violent threats were communicated by the spirits, things seemed more in control after a séance was conducted. For a while things got quiet although the usual hauntings continued. But then in 1935, the events began to take a turn for the worse and the Foysters were getting really upset. It was already hard enough dealing with the unexpected manner in which objects would appear out of nowhere with constant ringing of the bells sounded throughout the house and the threat of knowing that you could suddenly get hit by a flying object. Many times, Mrs. Foyster had avoided objects hurled at her! What was irking the family though was their tolerance level in dealing with the terrible paranormal phenomena and living in Borley Rectory had become just too much to bear! Their adopted child was soon targeted for more attacks following a violent attack that frightened her and the bells were ringing too frequently on their own.
The family decided to leave and the church also realized soon enough that the rectory was best sold since no parson would live in the house comfortably given the strange goings-on. If anything the families were all tormented ruthlessly too much and too often. The church approached Harry Price with their sale offer but he agreed to only rent the place for a year.
Harry Price of course had his own research plans to document the activities of the house and for this, he sought people who were willing to stay in the house and catalogue the events for him. It seemed that he chose close to 50 people for his research following his newspaper advertisement. Together they documented all the information that was required by Harry Price who engaged each of those hired to follow his instructions as denoted in his blue book.
While many of them may not have encountered all the strange occurrences that deluged the previous parsons to the rectory, a number of them did see the nun, noticed strange lights and encountered the movement of objects around the house. Harry Price noticed during this time that the strange writings that Marianne Foyster saw also continued long after she had left the house.
In the meantime, one of the tenants for the project had also engaged a series of séances during the time 1937-38 and in the course of that, identified spirits. One of those was called "Marie Lairre" who claimed she was a nun from France who had left the convent to marry a Henry Waldegrave who was living in a manor which is now occupied by the Borley Rectory. Waldegrave was said to bear ancestral ties to Reverend Henry Bull, the man who built the Borley Rectory. It seemed that the nun was strangled and her remains buried in the cellar. Then another spirit showed itself during one of these séances specifically on March 27, 1938. Her name was "Sunex Amures" and the spirit claimed that the rectory would burn that night and that the murder of the nun would be uncovered in the ruins. Well, the house did not burn down that night but on February 27, 1939 when an unfortunate accident led to its new owner Captain W.H. Gregson knocking off an oil lamp which was responsible for starting the fire.
For the record, Gregson too encountered a number of unusual happenings while living in the house and never recovered his two dogs which went missing mysteriously in the house. It was also said that as the fire consumed the house, many people could see ghostly beings moving within the flames. One of the claims included the statement that while the fire was occurring, the upper window bore the face of a nun.
In 1943, Harry Price returned to the site of the dilapidated house, now gutted down by the fire. He was said to have found a jawbone with five teeth in the cellars and a part of a human skull. The jawbone belonged to a young woman whom he thought was that of the nun. Because he was convinced she was not buried on consecrated ground, Harry Price decided to give the bone a Christian burial hoping it would stop the hauntings. The service was conducted two miles away from the rectory in the small village of Liston. The search for the jaw bone also turned up something else the following day. It seemed Harry Price also found two religious medals, one of which was made from gold of poor quality.
It was said that Harry Price arranged to have the skull he found photographed in a studio but the story goes that the skull was dropped and broken into four parts during the filming process. It seems that at that point of the fall, a number of strange things happened in the studio. An expensive oil painting crashed to the ground while a clock that had not worked for 10 years suddenly began working and then stopped for good. What was strange was it had functioned the way it was designed for close to 20 minutes after having failed for 10 years! Then for some reason unknown, the studio was suddenly destroyed in an air raid. It was a strange and bizarre situation. Was the studio cursed because of the mistreatment endured to the skull? No one knows but the studio seemed to have gone through some strange events….
In time, there were a number of reports that though the rectory was gutted down, several people who camped in its ruins have witnessed strange events including being touched by entities they couldn't see. During the Second World War, some officers have even reported hearing frightening sounds and seen shadows in the Nun's walk. Even now with the rectory long demolished, it seems that the village of Borley still continues to experience the hauntings. Many have said there are still supernatural occurrences on the site where the rectory used to be and some strange events have also been reported in the nearby church where manifestations were reported in the vestry and parts of the church building. The organ was also heard playing long after the church was closed from the outside. The story of the organ playing on its own was reported by a number of people who also claimed that the sounds of strange footsteps can be heard. There have also been continued sightings of the nun reported in the area.
During one of the visits in April 1944, Harry Price was accompanied by David Scherman, an American photographer who was taking photographs when he captured something rather extraordinary. Scherman who was shooting for Life Magazine was accompanied by a researcher from Time Life named Cynthia Ledsham at that time. Together with Harry Price, all three saw a brick shoot up into the air. This was captured in one of Scherman's photos as he was taking pictures some 150 feet away from the ruins of the house. All three checked the bricks in the area to see if there were any strings or wire attached to them but could find none. They also noticed there were no workmen in the area which meant that the brick had for some reason taken off four feet into the air and the question was how did such a thing happen?
As the photos were developed, Scherman and Price realized that they had captured a brick in flight and that it was an amazing proof that poltergeist activities were still evident in the area. However, many of Harry's critics claimed the picture to be a hoax but the photo it seems clearly shows that the brick was in motion and was not dangling from some point.
It was Harry Price who brought forth the story about the manifestations in the Borley Rectory and it was through him that the public became aware of the importance of paranormal research. Borley Rectory will probably live in the journals as one of the most haunted houses in England. No one would have imagined that there would be so much hauntings in a small village located close to the coastal areas of England. It was this and the manner in which Harry Price broadcast Borley Rectory that was to fascinate the whole world for many years to come. In fact, to be true, not much of the village of Borley would have been known if not for the haunting of the Borley Rectory and of course, it needed someone as vigilant as Harry Price to take the arduous steps to solve its unusual happenings.
Some say that the best time to catch the nun would be on July 28th, her favorite day for making the famous stroll she is known by on the Nun Walk. Maybe, if you are lucky, you might just finally see the nun taking off with her lover in a coach driven by a headless driver! That would be quite a catch to add to the invaluable Price chronicles!