Day 20: Borley Rectory
Once dubbed 'the most haunted house in England' Borley Rectory boasted lots of paranormal activity. It was built in 1862 to house the rector of the parish and his family, it is alleged to have been haunted from practically day one (the first recorded evet was in 1863). After it was badly damaged by fire in 1939, some individuals claimed to have seen three ghostly figures in the wreckage. The rectory was demolished in 1944 and has never been rebuilt.
In 1863, locals reported hearing unexplained footsteps when nobody was around. On 28 July 1900, four daughters of the rector thought they saw the ghost of a nun outside the house. They tried to communicate with the apparition but it disappeared as they got closer. People said that the family were convinced they had seen ghostly apparitions. During the next forty years, various people claimed to have seen strange things including a ghostly coach being driven by two headless horsemen.
On 2nd October 1928, over 15 months since the rectory had been left vacant, the Reverend Guy Smith and his wife moved in .While clearing out a cupboard, Mrs Smith found a paper bag containing a woman's skull. shortly after, the family claimed to hear the disconnected servant bells ringing at night, lights appearing in windows and unexplainable footsteps. Mrs Smith believed she had seen the ghostly carriage at night. The Smiths were put in touch with the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) via The Daily Mirror. The newspaper sent a reporter on 10th June 1929 who wrote the first in a series of articles about the mysteries of the rectory. Paranormal researcher Harry Price was sent to the house by the paper and reported many new phenomena such as the throwing of stones and other objects and the tapping out of spirit messages on the mirror. However these strange new phenomena left with Price, leading the family to believe the expert conjuror to have made it up. The family left the property on 14th July 1929 leaving the rectory vacant again and the parish struggling to replace them.
On 16th October 1930, Reverend Lionel Algernon Foyster and his wife Marianne moved in with their adopted daughter Adelaide. Lionel Foyster wrote of the strange apparently paranormal incidents that occurred between the day they moved in and October 1935. These included bell ringing, windows shattering, wall-writing and his daughter being locked in her room despite no key being used. This report was sent to Harry Price. Marianne complained of poltergeist activity that included her being thrown form her bed. On one occasion Adelaide claimed to have been attacked by "something horrible". Foyster attempted two exorcisms, during the first, he was struck in the shoulder by a fist sized stone and after the second, nothing had changed. Several psychic researchers were drawn to the cases reported in the Daily Mirror but decided Marianne had caused, perhaps unconsciously, the incidents recorded. Marianne later said that her husband and one of the researchers had been responsible for some incidents but she believed others to be genuine paranormal phenomena. She later admitted she had been having an affair with a lodger and had fabricated some of the phenomena to cover up their liaisons. One of the paranormal phenomena that captured attention and imagination was the wall-writing. Whoever or whatever was doing it, seemed to be trying to communicate directly with Marianne. One message seemed to read "Light mass prayers" and another "Marianne get help" it seemed someone needed help, possibly spiritual, from Marianne. The most famous message seems to read "Marianne get help, to die unrepentant bothers me" Marianne replied to the messages by writing responses in capitals on the wall. Under the famous message she wrote "I cannot understand, tell me more". Under this was written a message that is indecipherable, though it seems the words "light", "and" and "of" seem to be part of it. Marianne again replied, writing "I still cannot understand. Please tell me more". as a result of Lionel's ill health, the Foysters left the rectory in October 1935.
In May 1937, Harry Price rented the property from the owners for a year. He recruited 48 official observers who spent mainly weekends at the rectory, with instructions to report any phenomena that occurred. The daughter of one of the helpers conducted a planchette séance in London in March 1938. This woman, Helen, claimed to make contact with a spirit who identified herself as Marie Lairre. Marie was a French nun who had left her order and travelled to England to marry a member of the family that owned Borley Hall in the 17th century. Marie claimed to have been murdered on a property that had been on the same site as the rectory. Helen said Marie's body had either been buried in the cellar or thrown down a disused well. As on of the wall writings to Marianne Foyster had been "Marianne, please help me get out" it was alleged that the wall writings were from Marie. Helen claimed to have made contact with a second spirit who identified himself as Sunex Amures. Sunex claimed he would set fire to the rectory at nine o clock 27th March 1938, that night. He said that, at that time, the bones of a murdered person would be revealed.
On 27th February 1939, the new owner of the rectory was unpacking boxes when he accidentally knocked over an oil lamp in the hall. The fire spread through the property and severely damaged the house. Miss Williams from nearby Borley Lodge claimed that she saw the figure of a ghostly nun in an upstairs window. In August 1943, Harry Price conducted a dig in the cellar of the ruined house and two bones were discovered. While some believed they were the bone of a young woman, Borley refused to give them a Christian burial claiming they were the bones of pig. The bones were instead given a Christian burial in Liston churchyard.
There was a story that a monastery had been built in the area and in 1362, a monk from the monastery conducted a relationship with a nun from a nearby convent. When their relationship was discovered the monk was executed and the nun bricked up alive for breaking their vows. However, there is no historical evidence. Though there have been cases of monks and nuns in relationships and people being bricked up alive, this particular story was likely fabricated by the children who lived in the rectory in 1863 to romanticize their home.
After Price's death in 1948, Daily Mail reporter Charles Sutton accused him of faking phenomena. Sutton claimed that whilst visiting the rectory with Price in 1929 he was hit on the head by a large pebble. Sutton stated that he seized Price and found his coat pockets filled with different sized stones.
In 1948, Eric Dingwall, K. M. Goldney and Trevor H. Hall, three members of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), two of whom had been Price's most loyal associates, investigated his claims about Borley. Their findings were published in a 1956 book, The Haunting of Borley Rectory, which concluded that Price had fraudulently produced some of the phenomena.
The "Borley Report", as the SPR study has become known, stated that many of the phenomena were either faked or due to natural causes such as rats and the strange acoustics attributed to the odd shape of the house. In their conclusion, Dingwall, Goldney, and Hall wrote "when analysed, the evidence for haunting and poltergeist activity for each and every period appears to diminish in force and finally to vanish away." Terence Hines wrote that "Mrs. Marianne Foyster, wife of the Rev. Lionel Foyster who lived at the rectory from 1930 to 1935, was actively engaged in fraudulently creating [haunted] phenomena. Price himself 'salted the mine' and faked several phenomena while he was at the rectory."
Marianne Foyster, later in her life, admitted she had seen no apparitions and that the alleged ghostly noises were caused by the wind, friends she invited to the house and in other cases by herself playing practical jokes on her husband. Many of the legends about the rectory had been invented. The children of the Rev. Harry Bull who lived in the house before Lionel Foyster claimed to have seen nothing and were surprised they had been living in what was described as England's most haunted house.
Robert Hastings was one of the few SPR researchers to defend Price. Price's literary executor Paul Tabori and Peter Underwood have also defended Price against accusations of fraud. A similar approach was made by Ivan Banks in 1996. Michael Coleman in an SPR report in 1997 wrote Price's defenders are unable to rebut the criticisms convincingly.
It may be that Borley rectory was haunted and certain people falsified some incidents to make it more exciting and/or to keep the legend alive. It may be that every incident can be explained or was fabricated. The truth may never be known, Borley Rectory is no longer there. The most haunted house in England, or ghost stories that got out of hand? You decide.
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