Borley Rectory and Its Ghosts
Harry Price, Controversial Parapsychologist, Investigated this Case
May 22, 2007
The rectory was built on the site of an old Benedictine Monastery. The Reverend H.D.E Bull and his family were the first occupants in 1863 and were the first to witness ghostly events. Bull died in the Blue Room in 1892. Harry Bull inherited it from his father. He died in 1927 in the same room. The house was empty for a year before the Reverend Smith and his wife moved in.
The next occupants were the Reverend Lionel Foyster and his wife, Marianne. They lived there for 5 years. After they moved, Harry Price leased the property for a year. Captain William Gregson owned the rectory when it was gutted by fire in 1939. The ruins were demolished in 1944.
Ghostly Happenings at Borely Rectory
Phenomena included sounds of spectral footsteps and whispers. Doorbells rang by themselves and invisible hands tossed stones. Eerie lights appeared. There were apparitions of a girl dressed in white, a headless man, Bull and the nun who roamed the garden in a posture of sorrow. A phantom carriage was seen and heard.
There is a legend that a monk and novice were killed when they tried to elope in the 1200s. They left the grounds in a carriage, but were caught. The monk was hanged and the nun was bricked up alive in the convent walls.
Smith and his wife contacted the Daily Mirror that sent the reporter who contacted Price. Price asked to stay at the rectory. He witnessed the poltergeist activity.
When the Foysters lived there, the phenomena expanded to include glasses breaking, eerie writing on the walls, people being locked out of rooms, items vanishing, windows being smashed, furniture moving and more odd sounds. Marianne was slapped by invisible hands, forced to dodge objects and was thrown out of bed by an unseen force. Price attributed the poltergeist activity to her manipulations. He believed that the other ghostly phenomena were real.
Many of the strange writings were pleas for Marianne’s help. Price believed that there was a spirit who wrote them.
He held a séance and claimed to have contacted Marie Lairre, a French nun who married Henry Waldegrave whose wealthy family owned a home that was on the site of Borley Rectory. Waldegrave strangled her and buried her in the cellar, unconsecrated grounds. She could not rest.
Another spirit contacted Price and said the rectory would be destroyed by fire and there would be proof of the woman’s murder. After the fire, Price found a few bones that turned out to be those of a young woman. These remains had a Christian burial. The nun was not seen again.
In addition to séances, Price used still and motion picture cameras in investigations. He witnessed much of the phenomena and interviewed others who had witnessed them. He wrote two books about the rectory. Price died in 1948. Many authors tried to discredit him, writing that the phenomena were due to natural causes, hearsay and hoaxes.
Borely Rectory, Documentation
There is no historical documentation that the legendary nun and monk existed. Borley Rectory did burn down as predicted and Price found bones that proved a young woman was interred in the cellar.
As for the other phenomena, there were too many witnesses to deny these happened. There are photographs of the mysterious writing.
Sources:
Coxe, Anthony D. Hippisley, Haunted Britain (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1973)
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen, The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits (Facts on File, Inc., 1992)
