Before it burned down, the Borley rectory was given the title of “Most Haunted House in England,” and while the house is gone, the land remains haunted.
The parish of Borley is located on the northern border of Essex County in southern England. You can find the church at Borley on the north side of the main road, and the former Borley rectory is on the south with the cemetery in between.
In 1862 Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull built the rectory. Prior to starting construction, Bull was warned that the land was haunted, and had once been home to a benedictine monastery.
Locals told of the legend of a young nun who had lived in a neighboring nunnery at Bures. She had fallen in love with a monk who had occupied the benedictine monastery at Borley. Though they had taken their vows and their relationship was forbidden, they made plans to elope.
The couple’s plans were discovered, and they were quickly punished. There, on the grounds, the monk was hanged. As for the nun, her punishment was far worse. Back at the nunnery she was bricked up inside the walls – while still alive. Her tormented spirit would eventually escape and return to Borley, searching for her love.
The apparition of the nun was spotted outside the rectory with such regularity, that one area was nicknamed “the nun’s walk.” A small summer house was built in the area, from which a person would have a better vantage point to watch the nun as she wandered the grounds.
Occasionally the nun could be spotted peering into or out of the rectory windows.
Brushing away their fears, Bull moved forward with construction, building atop the ruins of the former rectory. This new rectory, built in the gothic style with red brick, stood two stories and spanned nearly four acres.
Almost immediately things began to happen. The Bull family could hear disembodied footsteps following behind them as they walked. Apparitions appeared, not just to one member of the family, but to everyone. Servants bells would ring, even when no one was present, and even after the wires had been cut.
The ghostly activity was most prevalent in the area of the home where Ethel, one of the Bull’s younger daughters, slept. Her door was rapped on, and she could hear heavy footsteps in the hall. Once, as she lay in bed, her face was slapped by an invisible hand.
Ethel’s nursemaid, Elizabeth Byford, quit after just two weeks, terrified from the haunting footsteps that paced outside her room at midnight.
By this time, most families would have moved on, but not the Bull family. Reverend Henry Bull died in the blue room on May 2, 1892 after which his son, Reverend Henry “Harry” Foyster, took over his duties. Ghostly activity continued, some would say it increased .
One day, while in the garden with his dog, Henry spotted a pair of legs in the orchard behind the trees. He watched as the legs moved from behind the foliage, and what he saw was startling. The legs belonged to a headless apparition.
Then there was the phantom coach, spotted on several occasions. A large black coach, pulled by four black horses, would clatter down the road, driven by two headless coachmen. After it passed the rectory, it would disappear altogether. Though you could see the coach, it never made a sound.
Foyster remained at the rectory until, and after, his death on June 9, 1927, with many reporting seeing his ghost on more than one occasion.
After Reverend Henry Foyster’s death, the rectory stood vacant for a while. That is until Reverend Guy Eric Smith and his family took up the post.
One day Mrs Smith was cleaning the kitchen. Cleaning out a cupboard, she came upon a strange paper package. Opening it, she was horrified to discover a human skull. The Reverend took the skull and buried it in one of the churchyards. Despite burying the skull, the family believed its discovery was the trigger for worsening poltergeist activity.
It was reported that in the blue room they could hear whispering that turned to pleading, “Don’t, Carlos! Don’t!”
They contacted a local newspaper, The Daily Mirror, and asked them to help put them in contact with someone who could help. A reporter visited the home, and then they were introduced to Harry Price, a paranormal investigator.
Harry Price had formed the National Laboratory for Psychical Research, and was well known for debunking and exposing fraudulent mediums and spirit photographers. As soon as he arrived at Borley rectory, things began to happen. Not only were there noises and flying objects, but now pebbles were hitting the house, and rolling down the stairs. They could hear messages being tapped out on the frame of a mirror in the blue room.
Several articles appeared in the newspapers about the haunting.
The Smith family remained at the rectory for less than a year, leaving on July 14, 1929 due to ghostly activity, and curious onlookers. At this point, the rectory remained vacant for more than a year, while they searched for a new reverend to take over.
Though the Bull family was no longer responsible for the rectory, they still had family in the area. After much encouragement, they were able to convince a family member, Reverend Lionel Foyster, to join the parish. In 1930, the Reverend, his much younger wife, Marianne, and their adopted daughter, Adelaide, moved in.
Ghostly activity increased in intensity. Now, things were disappearing without a trace, while objects the family didn’t recognize appeared from nowhere. Items were thrown at the couple, and on one occasion, an item hit Marianne so hard, she was left with a black eye and cut face.
Numerous times Marianne was thrown out of bed. Fires would break out spontaneously, and doors locked and unlocked of their own accord.
Then strange and mysterious messages began to appear on the walls of the house. Often addressed to Marianne, the messages read, “Marianne help get,” “Marianne light mass prayers,” and “pleas for help and prayers.”
They had the house exorcised – twice, but the activity continued.
Harry Price visited the home again and was able to record numerous more incidents including a strangeness with wine. Price had taken two bottles of wine with him to the home. Before either bottle was opened, one had turned to ink, the other to perfume. Both bottles had been sealed.
In October 1935, Reverend Foyster and his family left the rectory, due to his poor health, including advanced arthritis. His diary of unexplained happenings at Borley was sent to Harry Price.
At this time, the church had given up on finding anyone to take over the parish. They put the rectory up for sale and it sat vacant for 2 years. But then Harry Price contacted the church. He wanted to rent the house for a year, for a paranormal investigation. They agreed, and on May 2, 1937, Price placed an ad in The Times.
“HAUNTED HOUSE: Responsible persons of leisure and intelligence, intrepid, critical, and unbiased, are invited to join a rota of observers in a year’s night and day investigation of an alleged haunted house in the Home counties. Printed Instructions supplied. Scientific training or ability to operate simple instruments an advantage. House situated in a lonely hamlet, so own car is essential. Write Box H.989, The Times, E.C.4”
After conducting several interviews, Price ended up with 48 observers to join him at the rectory at various times. Their job was to record anything they saw, heard, or felt. On March 27, 1938, they held a séance. During the séance, they were able to make contact with two spirits.
The first spirit was a catholic nun named Marie Lairre. She had come from France to the nunnery at Bures, where she met, fell in love with, and married Henry Waldengrave. It is believed that his home once stood on the very ground the rectory was built on.
One evening, in a fit of rage, Henry strangled Marie Lairre, and buried her body in the cellar. Price believed this could be the spirit that had been trying to communicate with Marianne Foyster.
The second spirit identified itself as Sunex Amures. This spirit claimed that a fire would start in the hallway and the rectory would burn to the ground that very night. In the ashes, they would then discover the bones of a murder victim.
The house did not burn that night.
Harry Price finished out his lease, and left the rectory. The building was then taken over by William Hart Gregson, an architect, who had purchased it in December 1938 to turn it into a tourist attraction. Gregson had a dog with him, who was spooked by the paranormal activity and ran away.
On February 27, 1939, while unpacking his belongings, he bumped into an oil lamp in the hallway. The building caught fire and burned to ruins. While the house burned, one person reported witnessing the nun looking down at them from a window in the blue room.
In 1943 Harry Price returned to the rectory once more. This time his goal was to excavate the cellar area. There, he discovered bones, including the jawbone of a young woman. Though he had tried to have them buried at Borley cemetery, the church had refused, claiming they were nothing more than pig bones. They were eventually interred at Liston Church.
During demolition of the ruins, two photos were taken. In one, you could see a brick floating in mid-air, while the other showed a shadowy figure walking amongst the tombstones in the nearby cemetery. After this, ghostly activity moved, centering mostly in the church and the cemetery.
The haunting now happening at the church was, and continues, to be investigated to this day. Many have reported hearing organ music as well as footsteps and the opening and closing of doors. Sightings of the nun continue.
In the late 1940’s, during the war, Army officers used the site and claimed they had an uneasy feeling. Additionally, they had stones thrown at them. In the 1960’s, “battery torches and car headlamps all failed without obvious cause.”
Many have gone on to dismiss the Borley rectory haunting as a fake. Louis Mayerling published a book in 2000, We Faked the Ghosts of Borley Rectory. His book was based on his time staying there since 1918 when, he claimed, he witnessed Reverend Henry “Harry” Dawson Ellis Bull taking delight in stoking local rumors of a ghostly nun.
Mayerling claimed to have been the “invisible hands” that played the “magic piano.” “I would love to say that there was a grain of truth in it all, but I felt that the book had to be written to reveal the farcical truth about the house – as personally experienced.”
As for the hauntings claimed by the Foysters, he said they were struggling to make ends meet, and by boosting the ghostly reputation of Borley was one way to pay the bills. He claimed they had encouraged him to walk the gardens at dusk, wearing a black cape to give rise to the myth of the headless monk who wrote cryptic messages on walls.
One thing he could not explain, however, took place on Easter, 1935. He, along with Marianne Foyster, and paranormal investigators, attended a séance at Borley rectory, in the cellar, at midnight. As the group all settled, they could hear kitchen bells clang together in a single clash, something both he, and Marianne, knew was impossible. Then lightning flashed, a streak of silver-blue light, which bounced from wall to ceiling in the cellar, followed by dead silence. “I can’t explain that occurrence and, to be honest, it still makes me feel rather shaken,” he admitted.
Harry Price wrote two books on Borley rectory, The Most Haunted House in England: Ten Years Investigation of Borley Rectory, Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter, and was working on a third at the time of his death in 1948. The investigations that took place led many to call Borley rectory “The Most Haunted House in England.”
Author John Peters also wrote a book called Borley Rectory: The Ghosts That Never Were in which he covers an investigation exploring the truth behind every reported activity of the paranormal occurred. You can also check out his website for more information.
Today, you will even find a piece of Borley rectory, a brick from one of the walls, in the Warren Occult Museum, a museum full of artifacts collected by the famous Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Another fascinating haunting comes to you from Australia. This one is Schneider’s Alley, haunted by the good doctors former patients.
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