Borley Rectory

Most Haunted House?

History

The Rectory came to public attention in 1928 when the then rector Guy Eric Smith and his wife contacted the Daily Mirror newspaper. The paper arranged for Harry Price from the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) to visit and investigate. Price was intrigued by events at the rectory and some years later he returned to live there for a year and conduct detailed research.

In 1939 the rectory was gutted by a fire caused by the new owner knocking over an oil lamp. The rectory remained in ruins until it was demolished in 1944.

Ghosts?

Since the rectory was built on the site of an old monastry, we might expect a ghostly monk rather than a nun. According to legend, back in the 13th century one of the monks and a nun from the nearby nunnery fell in love and tried to elope. They were caught and put to death. The monk was hanged in the monastry whilst the nun was walled up - still alive - in the nunnery and left to starve. Her spirit thereafter returned endlessly to the monastry seeking the spirit of the monk in the hope of escaping again.

The nun was seen on and off between 1900 and the destruction of the rectory and seemed to be most active during the tenancy of Reverend Harry Bull around the beginning of the 20th century. She may have been heard far more often than she was seen - reports of unexplained footsteps, ghostly wailings etc were commonplace.

Another less frequently seen apparition was that of a ghostly coach driven by two headless horsemen. There doesn't seem to be any specific local legend to account for this, however the phantom death coach is common to many traditions.

In the 1920s, when the rectory was occupied by Smith and his wife, the ghostly events took a more physical turn reminiscent of poltergeist activity. Furniture was moved, windows were smashed, bells were heard ringing. The Smiths eventually left the rectory.

The next occupants of Borley Rectory were Reverend Lionel Foyster and his wife. Foyster reported continuing psychic disturbances of a poltergeist like nature. He twice tried - unsuccessfully - to exorcise the house.

As the reputation of the haunted rectory spread it became a popular destination for ghost hunters. A number of seances were conducted to attempt to identify the restless spirits, during one of which the ghost of a young woman identified herself as a nun.

Perhaps the most interesting outcome of the seances was in 1938 when a spirit predicted that the rectory would burn that night. The prediction was wrong by eleven months. Less than a year later Borley Rectory did indeed burn.

Hoax?

In 2000 a book was published claiming that the haunting of Borley Rectory was what many skeptics has suspected all along - simply an elaborate hoax. The book - We Faked the Ghosts of Borley Rectory - was written by Louis Mayerling.

Mayerling had lived in the Borley area and knew the Reverend Bull and his children well. According to Mayerling, he helped the Bull family to fake the ghosts and other psychic phenomena. The servants were apparently in on the game and encouraged the children to use the various hidden passages that existed in the rectory to make the game more convincing.

One must, of course, accept Mayerling's claims. However they don't explain the entire history of the Borley Rectory ghosts that occured throughout the tenancy of various occupants. To assume that the servants kept the hoax going to scare future occupants would seem counter to the social trends of the time. In addition any such conspiracy that involves numerous people over a long period of time is liable to be exposed.

There is no doubt that at least some of the Borley Rectory ghosts were hoaxes. However the subject is too complex to be easily explained by any one theory. Unfortunately, with the rectory destroyed we'll never know the full truth.

Perhaps it's better that way. I for one like to remember the legend of Borley Rectory as the most haunted house in England.