Borley Rectory

The Bull family, who lived at the rectory for decades, told of a nun seen gliding along a garden path later called the 'Nun's Walk'. Local legend linked her to a doomed romance with a monk, though no historical record supports the story.

In 1929 the new rector, Guy Eric Smith, contacted the Daily Mirror, which brought the psychical researcher Harry Price to Borley. Price reported flying objects and mysterious bell-ringing. From 1930, under the Rev. Lionel Foyster and his wife Marianne, pencilled messages appeared on walls appealing to 'Marianne' for help.

Price later rented the house in 1937 and recruited volunteer observers. In February 1939 a fire, caused by an overturned oil lamp according to the then owner, gutted the building. Price's books turned Borley into a national legend.

In 1956 three SPR members, Eric Dingwall, Kathleen Goldney and Trevor Hall, published The Haunting of Borley Rectory, a critical study concluding that many phenomena could be explained by natural causes, misreporting or deliberate fraud, and questioning Price's own conduct. Defenders have contested parts of that report ever since.

Borley illustrates why careful documentation matters: a sensational story, a famous investigator and the press can shape a haunting as much as anything witnessed in the house.