Taken from Newsletter Issue 9 - January 2004

Why does an alleged haunting from decades ago still get so much attention? It might be because Borley offers every type of phenomena associated with hauntings. It has had poltergeists, séances, apports, voices, footsteps, choirs singing, and a sad little nun. The only thing it didn’t have was dragging chains, but it made up for that with a rare exhibit of wall writings. The rectory was built by the Reverend Henry Bull in 1863, but the church at Borley dates back much further. A.C. Henning, the rector in 1936, discovered that the Doomsday Book told of a Borley Manor prior to 1066, so he concluded a wooden church was probably also built around that tune.

In 1362 Benedictine Monks built a monastery on the site which would later hold the rectory. Legend told of a monk from the monastery eloping with a nun from the Bures nunnery, some seven miles to the southeast. A friend of the monk was to drive the getaway carriage. They were caught - the monk was hanged, and the nun bricked up alive in the walls of the nunnery. Other unexplained events are scattered throughout the early years of the rectory. A former headmaster of Colchester Royal Grammar School said he saw a nun several times about 1885-86. In 1886, a nursemaid by the name of Mrs. E. Byford left the rectory because of ghostly footsteps and on July 28, 1900, three sisters reportedly saw a figure on a path called the “Nuns Walk” to the rear of the rectory. During the autumn of 1927, and while it was still empty, a local carpenter named Fred Cartwright said he saw a nun four separate times by the gate. While living in the rectory, The Smith Family apparently heard the loud ringing of the doorbell, noticed keys disappeared, experienced small pebbles being thrown, heard slippered footsteps, and noticed lights being turned on. A horse-drawn coach was also claimed to have been seen.

When Harry Price arrived at the rectory for the first time, accompanied by his secretary, Miss Lucie Kaye, and by the reporter, new phenomena occurred included the throwing of stones and other objects, and the appearance of “apports”. Various phenomena were reported, including the appearance of a Catholic medallion and other articles and incessant bell ringing. Indeed, Price estimated “that at least two thousand Poltergeist phenomena were experienced at the Rectory between October 1930 and October 1935”. Many of these paranormal events could have happened naturally although there were at least some phenomena both Harry and Miss Lucie was never sure about, however, including various writings that appeared on the walls and on slips of paper that mysteriously appeared out of nowhere.

During the first fifteen months of their tenancy, Lionel Foyster and his wife Marianne described many unexplained happenings including; bell ringing, the appearance of Harry Bull, glass objects appearing out of nowhere and being dashed to the floor, books appearing, and many items being thrown, including pebbles and an iron. After an attempt at exorcism, Marianne was thrown out of bed several times. Reverend Foyster and his pretty wife stayed precisely five years in the “Most Haunted House in England”. Some have said it was the nightmares that chased the Foysters away from the huge rectory in Suffolk. Was it really the ghost of a nun or a headless coachman that drove them away? On February 27, 1939, a new tenant was stocking some bookcases when a lamp overturned. Witnesses watching the blaze spotted ghosts in the windows. The site was razed in 1944. With the scores of witnesses and thousands of events taking place at Borley, could the place really be haunted? Indeed to this date, something mysterious and unexplainable still remains in this remote country valley called Borley.