Haunted Borley Rectory

Borley Rectory was built in 1862, and it is the residence of the parish rector. Borley is a small rural neighborhood of three hamlets in Essex. It has 110 occupants during that time. There is a rumor that a local monk had a secret affair with a nun. After the affair was discovered, they were punished by their superiors. The monk was executed and the nun was bricked up inside the convent walls and she died. However, the monk and the nun's love story are doubted as fake, and the tale of the murdered lovers is true as per the investigation reports. The tales of ghost stories started in 1863 when schoolchildren claimed that they had seen the ghost of a nun in the rectory’s grounds. In 1927, the Reverend Guy Eric Smith and his family moved into the house. They found a skull of a young woman in the cupboard. After the discovery of the skull, supernatural activity began in the house like strange noises, unexplained footsteps within, and ghostly apparitions.



The couple contacted The Daily Mirror and the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). The Daily Mirror responded positively, and they sent a reporter cum paranormal researcher Harry Price. When he is investigating the house, he observes dramatic experiences like objects thrown at him and spirit messages in the mirror. After these incidents, Smiths left the Borley house, and reporter Price published an article regarding the haunted house. Even though in 1930 Reverend Lionel Algernon and his family bought the house even they are aware of the ghost apparitions.

The family stayed for five years in the house, and they experienced supernatural things like breaking windows, writings appearing on the walls, daughter being locked in a room.  After the incident took place, the family approached the reporter Price, and he helped them exorcise the house. In 1929, Price's article gained enormous public attention regarding paranormal entities.

In the report of 17th June 1929, The Daily Mirror reported that:

‘The rectory continues to receive the unwelcome attention of hundreds of curious people, and at night the headlights of their cars may be seen for miles around. One ‘enterprising’ firm even ran a motor coach to the Rectory, inviting the public ‘to come and see the Borley Ghost’, while cases of rowdyism were frequent.’ 

A professional medium Guy L’Estrange visited Borley. He wrote that:

‘Later, being entertained by the rector and his wife, he heard for the first time of mysterious forms, male and female, being seen inside and outside the house; of lights in unoccupied rooms; of articles appearing and being thrown; of fires breaking out; of mysterious whisperings and unexplained writings on walls and scraps of paper. Once, the rector told him, he was working alone in his study when he saw a pencil rise from the desk and scrawl words on the wall in front of him -no hand was visible!’

Guy L’Estrange, cited in Borley Postscript by Peter Underwood p114 via Andrew Clarke


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