Source: https://unknown-app.download/blog/en-us/what-happened-at-borley-rectory/ Haunted Places · 5 min read # What Happened at Borley Rectory? The Facts and the Legend Borley Rectory in Essex was called the most haunted house in England. Here is what is documented, what Harry Price claimed, and what critics say. [Back to Files](https://unknown-app.download/blog/en-us/) ![A gaunt brick rectory at dusk with dark windows, a partly burned roof and a pale shape in an upper window, seen across a misty overgrown garden. A black cat sits on a mossy stone wall in the foreground.](https://unknown-app.download/images/blog-blog-borley-rectory-haunted-960.webp) Borley Rectory was a large Victorian house in the Essex village of Borley, built in 1862 for the Rev. Henry Dawson Ellis Bull. It became famous in 1929, when a newspaper story and a visit from the ghost hunter Harry Price turned a local rumour into a national one. Price later called it "the most haunted house in England." The house burned in 1939 and was pulled down in 1944. What is not settled is whether anything supernatural ever happened there, because the best-known evidence comes mostly from Price, and later investigators doubted him. ## Who built Borley Rectory, and when did the stories start? The rectory was built in 1862 and was later enlarged for the Bull family, which had many children. Accounts say that locals recalled strange footsteps from the 1860s, but those memories were written down long after the fact. The first dated report is from 28 July 1900, when four of the Bull sisters said they saw a figure like a nun in the garden. Later retellings treat this as the start of the "ghostly nun" legend. Yet the Bull children are said to have told later researchers that they had seen nothing, which contradicts the earlier account. ## How did the Daily Mirror and Harry Price make it famous? The Rev. Guy Eric Smith and his wife moved in on 2 October 1928. They reported odd noises and objects, and Mrs. Smith is said to have found a package holding a skull. In June 1929 the *Daily Mirror* sent a reporter, and the paper contacted Harry Price, a London investigator of psychic claims. Price visited on 12 June 1929 and the story spread. The Smiths left in July 1929. The next rector, the Rev. Lionel Foyster, moved in with his wife Marianne in October 1930. The reports grew stranger: thrown objects, writing on the walls and bells. Price suspected at one point that Marianne had caused a disturbance he saw. The Foysters left in 1935. ## What did Price do in 1937 and 1938? In May 1937 Price rented the empty rectory and, after an appeal in *The Times* on 25 May, recruited about 48 volunteer observers. He also published a guide for observers, which the Society for Psychical Research's Psi Encyclopedia calls probably the first detailed set of instructions for investigating a haunting. Séances with a planchette (a small writing board) in 1937 and 1938 produced a "spirit" that named itself Marie Lairre, a French nun said to have been murdered. A researcher later cited an older legend of a strangled nun, but the origin of that tale has not been established. One message also predicted that the house would burn down, with a date given as 27 March 1938. No fire happened then. ## When did the rectory burn down? A fire broke out on 27 February 1939, after an oil lamp was knocked over, and it severely damaged the house. Sources differ on the cause. One account blames an accidental spill by Captain W. H. Gregson. Another says the insurers thought the fire looked deliberate. In 1943 Price supervised digging in the cellar, which turned up bones that he took as evidence of the murdered nun. Others held that they were not what he claimed, and their dating and origin were disputed; one local view was that some were from a pig. The ruined house was demolished in 1944. Price told the story in *The Most Haunted House in England* (1940) and *The End of Borley Rectory* (1946). Both sold well and made the house a fixture of British ghost lore. ## Why do critics say the case was exaggerated or faked? Price died in 1948. Soon after, three members of the Society for Psychical Research, Eric Dingwall, Kathleen Goldney and Trevor Hall, went through his claims. Their report, *The Haunting of Borley Rectory*, appeared in 1956 (one database lists it as 1955). They concluded that many phenomena could be explained by rumour, imagination, ordinary causes or deliberate trickery, and that Price had distorted his account. In one example, Price presented a flying brick, seen in April 1944, as a poltergeist, but a journalist who was there thought a workman threw it. Price had claimed at least 2,000 unexplained phenomena, and the report judged his work unreliable. Marianne Foyster's later statements added to the doubts. In 1977 she told an SPR researcher that her husband had faked some events and that some had no human cause. Other accounts say she admitted staging some incidents as jokes and using ghost explanations to hide an affair. Because those later accounts come from one person years afterward, they are hard to verify. ## Did anyone defend Price? Yes. Robert Hastings published a report for the SPR in 1969 that argued the critics were trying to discredit Price and that the charges against his integrity were largely unfounded. Writers such as Paul Tabori and Peter Underwood also defended him. The historian Michael Coleman, writing in 1997, felt the defenders had not convincingly answered the criticisms. So the dispute was never resolved in the form of a clear verdict, and some points, such as the cause of the fire, remain open. ## What is the safest way to read the Borley story? The documented parts are simple: a rectory built in 1862, a series of tenants who reported odd events, Price's visits and lease, the 1939 fire and the 1944 demolition. The ghostly nun, the murder and the "2,000 phenomena" rest on testimony, séances and Price's own writing. For another case where the building itself is real history and the legend grew around it, compare [the Queen Mary in Long Beach](https://unknown-app.download/blog/en-us/why-is-the-queen-mary-said-to-be-haunted/) or [the Amityville Horror](https://unknown-app.download/blog/en-us/what-is-the-true-story-behind-the-amityville-horror/). In each, it helps to ask who first told the story, when it was written down, and whether any record from the time backs it up. ## Sources - [Borley Rectory, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borley_Rectory) - [Borley Rectory, Psi Encyclopedia, Society for Psychical Research](https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/borley-rectory) - [Harry Price, Psi Encyclopedia, Society for Psychical Research](https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/harry-price) Want more cases like this one? Explore Haunted Places in Unknown. [Get the App](https://unknown-app.download/#get-the-app) [See the course](https://unknown-app.download/courses/haunted-places/) ## Keep reading - ![A Dutch Colonial house at night with two small attic windows glowing, bare trees and fog. A black cat sits on the lawn watching the house.](https://unknown-app.download/images/blog-amityville-house-960.webp) Haunted Places November 9, 2026 4 min read ### [What Is the True Story Behind the Amityville Horror?](https://unknown-app.download/blog/en-us/what-is-the-true-story-behind-the-amityville-horror/) The Amityville Horror claims a New York house was haunted after a 1974 murder. Here is what happened, what the Lutz family said and why many doubt the story. Read article - ![A gothic stone prison with a long cell block corridor visible through a rusted gate, weak light, peeling paint. A black cat sits on the floor at the corridor entrance.](https://unknown-app.download/images/blog-eastern-state-penitentiary-960.webp) Haunted Places November 9, 2026 4 min read ### [Why Is Eastern State Penitentiary Said to Be Haunted?](https://unknown-app.download/blog/en-us/why-is-eastern-state-penitentiary-said-to-be-haunted/) Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia once held Al Capone and now draws ghost hunters. Here is its real history and why people say it is haunted. Read article - ![A huge ocean liner docked at night with tall funnels and rows of lit portholes under a foggy sky. A black cat sits on a dock bollard in the foreground.](https://unknown-app.download/images/blog-queen-mary-haunted-960.webp) Haunted Places November 9, 2026 4 min read ### [Why Is the Queen Mary Said to Be Haunted?](https://unknown-app.download/blog/en-us/why-is-the-queen-mary-said-to-be-haunted/) The Queen Mary, an ocean liner docked in Long Beach, is called one of the most haunted ships in the world. Here are the legends and what the record shows. Read article