The Psychic Investigation Of Borley Rectory
05/04/2009 by: eyepriestess
Harry Price
THE MOST HAUNTED HOUSE IN ENGLAND – THE PSYCHIC INVESTIGATION
PART TWO
In 1862-1863 the Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull, built Borley rectory, arguably the most famous haunted house in England. It was believed to be the ground it was actually erected on which held sinister memories of macabre events absorbed and ‘burnt in time’.
During Harry Price’s first psychic investigation of Borley Rectory on June 12th 1929, he reported poltergeist activity had occurred when stones, vases, and other objects had been thrown at him and the Reverand Smith’s wife. He also laid claim to receiving spirit messages being tapped out from a mirror.
After Price left the rectory later that day, Mrs Smith noted that this new type of poltergeist phenomena ceased as soon as Price stepped back over the threshold. She immediately wondered why this should be the case and later had suspicions of Price’s claims.
A short while after Price’s visit to the rectory, the Smith’s made plans to leave the home they shared with their unwelcome ghosts and on July 14th 1929 they bid Borley rectory a grateful farewell.
Over a year passed by before the rectory became home to live inhabitants. On October 16th 1930, a first cousin of the Bull family, the Reverend Lionel Foyster took up residence with his wife, their adopted daughter and of course the many other spooky hangers-on who refused to leave the rectory.
The Foyster’s lived at the Rectory for seven years. In which time they endured relentless paranormal incidents such as, objects being hurled across rooms, windows breaking, eerie often unintelligible writing appearing on walls, which was addressed to the Reverend’s wife, Marianne. Two of the most readable were:
“Marianne, please help get” and another, “Pleas for help and prayers”.
Another terrifying event happened when the Foyster’s daughter, Adelaide was unable to open the door of her room even though this did not have a lock. She was later attacked by an evil presence, which she went on to describe as ‘something horrible.’
The Reverend’s wife, Marianne suffered increasing terror when she was tossed from her bed by an unseen force.
On two occasions the Reverend attempted exorcisms in the Rectory, which were unsuccessful, especially during the first when he was hit by a large stone on his shoulder.
Each event was passed on by the Reverend to Harry Price who together with a number of other psychic investigators examined the reports. After time spent at the rectory and observing the Foyster’s the team came to a unanimous conclusion …Marianne was the most likely cause of the paranormal activity.
Marianne later admitted to having an affair with the lodger, Frank Peerless and said she used paranormal activity as a cover in order to keep the affair a secret.
The paranormal activity (Reverend Foyster believed in the main to be of a genuine nature), and Marianne’s affair probably contributed to the Reverend’s declining health, therefore the family vacated Borley rectory in May 1937.
Harry Price’s obsession with Borley rectory remained and in 1937 he rented the rectory for a year from the true owners of the building, the ‘Queen Anne’s Bounty’.
Price placed an advertisement on 25th May 1937 in The Times newspaper asking for helpers who would be willing to study the activity at the rectory. After extensive interviews he recruited forty eight people, mainly students who would carry out the investigations during weekend visits to the rectory.
Although there were many unexplainable reports from Price’s helpers, the most notable event occurred on March 27th 1938 when the daughter of S J Glanville one of Price’s team, held a séance in Streatham, south London. Price stated that Helen Glanville and other witnesses received information from two spirits. The first claimed to be a nun called, Marie Lairre who gave an account of her murder at the site of Borley rectory in 1667. She told of her husband, Henry Waldegrave killing her after eloping with him to England.
The second spirit identified himself as ‘Sunex Amures’ who warned that he would cause the rectory to burn down the very same evening and a nun’s remains would be unearthed from the ruins. Of course they all waited with nervous anticipation for the prediction to come true, but nothing happened ‘then’.
After Price’s lease ran out, the rectory was taken over by a gentleman called, Captain Gregson, who also witnessed paranormal activity and the unexplainable disappearance of his two dogs.
On February 19th 1939 exactly eleven months after the séance, Gregson was unpacking boxes in the hall of the rectory when the warning from the spirit ‘Sunex Amures’ came true. An oil lamp unaccountably fell off the stand and started a raging fire which burned the building to the ground, claiming the existence of Borley rectory.
The insurance company were not convinced with Captain Gregson’s explanation for the fire however and it was deemed as fraudulent.
Harry Price’s curiosity would not settle after the fire and he returned to the site of Borley rectory in 1943, where he began an excavation of the cellars. Quite remarkably he discovered the bones of a young woman and a necklace of Saint Ignatius. Price was certain this could not possibly be coincidental and that it had to be part of the remains of the nun, Marie Lairre. He was also convinced it was her doing when the scribed messages appeared on the Borley rectory walls for Marianne Foyster:
“Marianne, please help get”.
“Pleas for help and prayers”.
Price arranged for a Christian burial of the bones in Liston churchyard even though locals said they were probably the bones of a pig.
Marie Lairre is now at peace and resting…or is she? Spectral presences are still reported…together with accounts of an eerie air which hangs like a grey translucent mist over the site of Borley rectory.
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By J Reynolds (aka Eyepriestess) Copyright 2009, J Reynolds @ World Mysteries And True Ghost Tales.
Wow, that was very interesting!
Nancy,
I only live about an hours drive from where Borley rectory once stood, I’m going to go visit this easter holiday if I can interest my daughter. I wonder if it does exhude that spooky air which is experienced and reported by visitors?
eyepriestess, I love to visit old houses. Here on the west coast of the Us., there isn’t that many old houses. The oldest might be a hundred years old in California. Most of them have been torn down for progress. Oregon has more and they keep them as Musiums.
I visited some of them , when I use to visit family up there.
I had two sister and a brother that lived there.
My one sister was a lot like me and she believed in the paranormal. The other didn’t believe and didn ‘t want to talk about it. I think it scared her. She hated the old houses and wouldn’t go with us, when we visited them.
My brother still lives there and he believes as I do and he has seen ghost [spirits] in his home.
In fact I told him that he sent some home with me. LOL
I hope you get to visit the Borley Rectory grounds. I’m anxious to hear about your visit and what you see.
Nancy,
I do too and seven months ago i moved into a very old house (i believe about 18th century), where you have to bob your head down as you go from bedroom to bedroom in the upstairs part. The doors still have those drop down latches too. I was a bit wary at first as it looked so spooky, but i’ve only had one incident where i heard a loud bang upstairs which made my light fitting shake as i walked through the dining room.
I went upstairs, but as there was nothing there when i reached the bedroom, as in a presence, i thought it must be structural and was told this must be the case. Not sure yet, it’s still early days, but i actually don’t want it to be haunted, i really couldn’t deal with it.
I only have one brother who doesn’t really believe and a sis who wouldn’t admit to it, but secretly i think she does believe. There’s only really my cousin and myself who fully believe in the paranormal as far as we know amongst our relatives.
I really feel now that i’ve written this article that i must go to the Borley rectory site. I’ll definately tell you about it, hopefully it will be this easter hols
By the way Nancy, I do not believe what your husband saw was poltergeist or residual haunting, i think it has something to do with the dream catcher. I’m looking into this with a friend of mine, but he has just had a load of vandals trash his garden, so now is not the time to discuss it obviously.
I really enjoyed reading part one and two of this story!
This is really a great story. If I lived that close to a place like this, I’d definitely have to go and visit it. I can’t wait to hear about your “adventure” there.
I definitely believe that it’s not always the house that is haunted. The ground can hold “secrets” from thousands of years ago. This is exactly why someone can have a brand new house built from the ground up and it’s haunted even though the house itself has no history.
I would love to visit the borley rectory. I am hopeing to go sometime this summer, because ever since I had first heard about it, I have wanted to go. Would be nice to get away also!!!!
Charizardftw,
well i was going to go but i got put off by Wayne who posts articles on here. He has been and says the locals and the neighbours are very hostile towards people visiting. They are sick of it apparently and come out giving abuse to tourists.
You’re right Nancy they don’t have the old houses like that over there. Here in France our town dates to the 11th century. There was the “great fire” in the 16th century half the town was destroyed then rebuilt,including churches. I wonder how many people died in that fire. Also I love old cemetaries and we got some great ones here.
I read the bit on the forum about your visit to Borley rectory, and that just sounds so creepy! Especially the way the locals acted toward you. But I guess they’re probably tired of visitors coming to quell their curiosity.
We get a few people coming to Decatur,Illinois (my spooky hometown) just to look at some of the places Troy Taylor wrote about. The bad thing is it has become a bit of a novelty. They even have ridiculously overpriced Haunted Decatur tours! Some of the actual beauty of living in a town with a lot of paranormal activity gets lost when it becomes commercialized like that. Maybe that’s why the locals act that way, they don’t want it to get like that. Still, it’s not like you were doing anything wrong………….
I know, you can understand how they must feel and I suppose they are protecting their neighbours privacy by not telling people where the rectory once stood.
I honestly didn’t expect the place to be quite so creepy, but it is such an isolated area, you feel like you are intruding just driving through.
That place of yours, well even the name sounds eerie, does it have a creepy atmosphere to it too?
They should be used to it, maybe they have experienced strange things in that area and don’t like to talk about it. There’s alot of people who will deny the paranormal.
Apparantly Karen, on halloween there has to be police guarding the private road that leads to Borley Hall, there are so many ghost hunters visiting.
On Halloween everyone wants to see a ghost, I can see where the town’s people would be mad with all these “intruders” not knowing if their town is safe.
Well, apart from me, I wouldn’t really like to see a ghost. If i was with a group of other people though it would be great, but not on my own.
From my story that you posted here, I did see one alone …………………..and well it was not really a pleasent experience! My memory is not faded as it was only 13 years ago, and I still remember it vividly!
Well I would have had a heart attack, seeing something must be the most scared you could ever be. As you know I’ve felt and heard, that was bad enough.
I’ll put a link to your story here Karen: http://www.worldmysteriesandtrueghosttales.com/the-mason-and-his-wife-a-usa-haunting/
Eyepriestess, thank-you for the link, I don’t know which is worse seeing it or being touched by it like you were without seeing anything at all I think that would of scared me more and then not knowing if it was going to follow me thank God it didn’t follow you!
Well, when i started to turn my head to face it, i’m just glad it attacked again as it could have been too hard to live with seeing it. I believe seeing is worse as you have to live with that image in your mind forever.
Your story is a great one, that’s why i put the link in case anyone missed it, it’s worth reading.
I wouldn’t even want to imagine what it looked like,cause that was a demon or evil entity, that would be more scarey than just seeing a dead man in form of a ghost, but I’m sure that still haunts you that feeling that that happend to you! Really I think being touched is worse!
It was definately evil, I could feel it so strong. I’ve often wondered what it looked like, if infact it was visible. I imagined it to look very dark as the energy was so dark.
The touch was not like the feel of a human hand, it went deeper than the surface of the body. I knew somehow that it was an evil force/demon.
Did you ever hear from the guy you had the seance with?
No, but it would be the best day if I could find him. Actually i might try on ‘myspace’ since we just joined that, we may as well use it.
Do you have a facebook account? I don’t, i used to but then de-activated it when my ex husband could see everything i said, as he was a friend on my daughter’s since he was her dad.
I don’t but Giuseppe is on facebook,he was trying to contact family member’s who moved to the U.S. I don’t like facebook either as we’ve had some problems with his family members because of that too!
I know others who have problems with facebook through family members knowing everything you’re doing. Myspace is much better.
Yes cause on myspace no one can see unless they’re in your friends list! Can’t you call the hotel where he worked and ask if he’s still there or if they have any info on him?
I have tried looking for him in yellow pages directory in Southampton, but never found him. It’ll happen one day I hope when i least expect it. I’m sure he has often thought about the experience. He may find the story on here, he’s bound to have an interest in the paranormal after that and may come onto sites such as this.