Borley Rectory

Borley Rectory was built in 1862 by Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull in rural Essex, population roughly 110. A local tradition claimed a medieval monastery had once stood nearby, where a monk and a nun had a love affair. The monk was executed, the nun was bricked up in the walls. No historical evidence supports any of this.

The Bull Years (1862-1927)

Schoolchildren reported seeing a ghostly nun near the rectory in 1863 and again in 1900. Reverend Harry “Dodie” Bull, who took over from his father, claimed to see the nun on several occasions. He died in the Blue Room in 1927.

The Foyster Period (1930-1935)

Reverend Lionel Algernon Foyster moved in on October 16, 1930, with his wife Marianne and their adopted daughter Adelaide. The phenomena escalated: shattering windows, stones and bottles thrown, Marianne and Adelaide locked in rooms, objects hurled across hallways.

The wall writings were the strangest element. Pencil and charcoal scrawls appeared on walls and scraps of paper, mostly addressed to Marianne: “Marianne, please help get” and “Marianne, please help me get out” and “get lights and prayers here.” The name appeared repeatedly in childlike script.

Harry Price (1937-1938)

Price rented the rectory in May 1937 and advertised in The Times for volunteer observers. He recruited forty-eight, mostly students. A planchette seance in Streatham produced two contacts: “Marie Lairre,” a murdered French nun, and “Sunex Amures,” who predicted the rectory would burn on March 27, 1938. It did not.

On February 27, 1939, the new owner Captain Gregson was unpacking books when an oil lamp overturned. The rectory burned. Price dug in the cellars and found a jawbone fragment and one other bone of a young woman. A three-year excavation found nothing more. The ruins were demolished in 1944.

The Debunking

Between 1948 and 1956, three members of the Society for Psychical Research investigated Price’s claims. Eric Dingwall, K.M. Goldney, and Trevor Hall concluded that Marianne Foyster “was actively engaged in fraudulently creating phenomena.” They found that Price himself had “salted the mine.” The phenomena increased during his visits and ceased when he left.

Their verdict: “When analysed, the evidence for haunting and poltergeist activity for each and every period appears to diminish in force and finally to vanish away.”

Marianne Foyster later admitted staging some of the minor incidents. Price died on March 29, 1948, before the report was published.