BORLEY RECTORY: most haunted house in England

[Beowulf]

Wouldn't that be a coincidence!!!!

The names are surely too close NOT to be the same man?

Phil

There is a Bull Hotel in Sudbury. I think it's origins go back to the Tudor days, and if so the name as well. I believe it is the same family, not sure. So I wondered if the one in London was as well. I wonder if the Bull family managed it.

Can you imagine, the Bull sisters, Harry Bull, all found the Borley nun fascinating. So they may have discussed the ongoing news of the time of Jack the Ripper in Borley itself.

What an image! Tales of Jack the Ripper while warming yourself in front of the Monk fireplace! With a thunderstorm outside and a fire crackling between the two cold marble white ghostlyish monks listening in on the conversation...

[Phil H]

For me the key question on Borley is:

Do the tales of "haunting" pre-date Harry Price and the 30s?

I am still not settled on an answer - there are stories, but also potential explanations. More on this anon.

Phil

P.S. I have been to the Bull in Sudbury, albeit only for afternoon tea!! A lovely old inn.

[Graham]

Phil,

I am sure that there were stories of hauntings and sightings of the so-called Phantom Nun long before Harry Price came on the scene in (as I thought) the late 1940's. Price's presence there was due, was it not, to a request from someone connected with the Rectory?

I once got treated to lunch at The Bull in Sudbury, and was glad i wasn't paying....

Graham

[Beowulf]

For me the key question on Borley is:

Do the tales of "haunting" pre-date Harry Price and the 30s?

I am still not settled on an answer - there are stories, but also potential explanations. More on this anon.

Phil

P.S. I have been to the Bull in Sudbury, albeit only for afternoon tea!! A lovely old inn.

The daughters of Harry Bull saw the nun in 1900.http://www.foxearth.org.uk/BorleyRec...Scissorman.htm

I see on this page he gives a possible explaination for what may have been the nun.



Here are photos of Nun's walk:

http://www.harrypricewebsite.co.uk/Borley/ModernBorley/nunswalk.htm

[Phil H]

There are undoubtedly reports from before 1900 of "events" at the Rectory (that is well before the place became known beyond its locality or the advent of Harry Price).

BUT: I think these stories may be suspect because:

a)we know the house was full of people - the Bull family, more than 10 children (allowing for some having not been born or having left home at any one time), servants and probably visitors too - there could have been little privacy and few times when any part of the house was notalive with people;

b) the Rectory was notoriously echoey and produced strange noises of its own (groaning timbers, the well-pump in the yard; and the yard itself appears to have been an echo chamber of sounding box once a new wing was built;

c) noises of people moving, odd sounds etc could thus have been natural and produced in the house, or in the adjacent farm yard and been heard as "odd" in another distant part of the building;

d) the family seems to have been prone to humour and practical jokes, with its own internal sense of fun - I am not convinced that the stories did not start in a joke of jape;

e) surviving members of the family in the 40s and even 50s seem to have indicated that the family developed a private joke about the nun, which then was told to others and came to be believed - the family then played up to it;

f) sightings of figures could simply have been tinkers, gypsies and others taking shortcuts across the fields, or scavenging the the farmland;

g) the "events" are inconsistent - the nun (I don't know about the "nin") being likely to be medieval, the coach C18th;

h) none of the stories appear to be consistent in terms of date or description; to be corroborated by others or to form a coherent whole...

Just possibly, the whole Borley story is a FRAUD (Price) founded on a hoax (Bulls).

AND YET... AND YET...

There still seems to be something lurking there

More later.

Phil

[Stewart P Evans]

Borley Rectory

Having studied the Borley Rectory (in Essex, not Suffolk), and Harry Price, story for some 53 years I can assure all those interested that it was not haunted (that is if you believe in ghosts).

As a great Harry Price aficionado (don't you just love 'Gef the talking mongoose' story too?) I still have to admit that he engaged in trickery (he was a skilled conjuror). Needless to say I have a vast Price/Borley collection including holograph letters and signed books.

[Phil H]

Good to see you in this thread Stewart. I hadn't realised we shared yet another interest - Borley?

What's your view on the Rev Bull owning the pub in Butcher's Row (see earlier post in this thread).

I first became interested in Borley when I was still at school, so around 1967/68 I'd guess. I stumbled on Price's "Most Haunted House" in the local library and was fascinated. In a much more desultory way than you, I have tried to keep abreast of the story.

I wrote the first post from memory and really should learn to check facts before I press submit. Thanks for the correction.

I certainly believe that price was a showman and a self-publicist, and was probably guilty of slight of hand in some of the phenomena at the Rectory. But I do get the impression that many of those who worked with him, making up the teams during his tenure, holding seances etc, were sincere. They must surely have thought something worth studying was going on - or were they all dupes?

I don't attach much (any?) credence to the Marie Lairre story or Sunex Amures - coincidence and generalisation covers both. But the pre-HP incidents 9if true) the post HP activity around the church and the personalities continue to fascinate.

Marianne Foyster alone would be almost unbelievable in a novel - I think a film about her would be very marketable - part psychological thriller, part chiller.

Warmest regards,
Phil

[Beowulf]

Phil,

I once got treated to lunch at The Bull in Sudbury, and was glad i wasn't paying....

Graham

Are you referring to the Bull Hotel in Long Melford?

http://www.oldenglishinns.co.uk/long-melford/

Because to this American it looks so quaint and 'English-like' that at one time
I was considering, after reading many Borley books, a trip to England and a stay at this lovely old inn. To browse the area (with the idea it would be exactly like 1930s of course) well, this really made me laugh.

But still, what a wonderful little dream it was.

[Phil H]

That looks like the inn I visited and Harry Price stayed in.

Phil

[Graham]

Beowulf,

No, I meant The Bull in Sudbury, as I said! It's quite a large pub with accommodation. I happened to have a customer in Sudbury, and on one visit he treated me, his supplier, to lunch! I wasn't complaining.

That entire area is dotted with beautiful picture-postcard villages.

Graham

[Steve S]

Just caught up...I too doubt the whole Gothic melodrama story..But do wonder if there wasn't some activity....To a degree,the whole thing reminds me of the Diary...A strange cast of characters..A forceful Investigator,claims and counter-claims to a level that the story is muddied beyond comprehension. Last book I read on it was Ivan Banks' "Enigma"...I did think his idea of about three separate origin stories was pushing it a bit!

[Phil H]

I enjoyed Bank's book very much.

Like you Steve, I am sceptical that he has the answer, but I don't think it will do to say the whole Borley story is made out of whole cloth.

I think there were some mysteries within the Bull family and the mix of personalities later played games with ideas - like Marianne with the wall-writing.

P.S. Harry Price, I don't think, ever took any notice of or interest in the church. Irrespective of what might be true with the rectory - does anyone think ther is any basis to what has been "recorded" about the church itself?

Phil

[Steve S]

It's possible..I worked with a guy from the Harlow Paranormal group who lent me a cassette of what they recorded.......I'd re-phrase the question,If it was anywhere but Borley,would we have such strong doubts about the Church events?

[dag]

Here’s an anagram about Borley Rectory:

Borley Rectory, the Most Haunted House in England? =
Many a ghostly old encounter bothered us in there

I think this anagram was created by Jack the Ripper. Or it might have been Lewis Carroll. Or it might even be one of mine, I can’t remember….

On the two occasions I have been to Borley I sensed absolutely nothing unusual or spooky about the place whatsoever. The church has always been locked when I have visited.

Regards,
David

[Phil H]

It was on both occasions I visited.

It would be looted if left unlocked and unattended, no doubt!

Phil