The most haunted house in England

Lee didn’t sleep at all last night and I dropped off for perhaps half an hour, but woke up cold and shivering beneath my thin blanket. Several bungalows have been built nearby on the grounds of the now demolished Rectory and in one of them, several dogs began to howl and then, just as suddenly, stopped again.

Lee was all for making a move and so, not prepared to stay alone in the field, I reluctantly got up and we walked back up to the church.

Across on the south side of the road is the site of the former Rectory, a place Harry Price called “the most haunted house in England.” Some of the site now lies in the garden of Borley Cottage, which shares the same red brick and high sharp-angled roof of the Rectory and which was bought recently by a retired Colonel for £79,000.

As we approached, seven or eight people were standing by the gate of the cottage gazing across the neatly clipped lawn towards a group of trees and which is where the Nun, last seen in 1972, is reputed to walk. All that remains of the Rectory is a couple of walls, one standing above ground next to the cottage, the other forming part of a stepdown to a lower level and a neighbouring field. We stood with the people, gazing into the shadows. A couple had gone over into the garden to sit by the Nun’s Walk and we could hear them whispering to one another.

Lee and I explored the site, finding nothing but smooth grass. In an adjacent outhouse Lee found an old billiard ball & the remains of old furniture. On the wall of the building someone had chalked the faceless figure of a nun standing with arms outstretched, a circle inscribing the heart, from which a black congealed liquid ran down onto the floor.

Back at the Church, another less obvious rap had been recorded. It was now about four a.m., and a séance was being held on the porch of the church by three girls who used an upturned wine glass as a planchette. They told us they do this sort of thing regularly, “although we only ever manage to get through to a little boy whose spirit will disappear if he knows he’s dead.” They told us that he considers their ouija board to be his own. They did once get another ‘spirit,’ that of an evil man who swore and whose appearances were accompanied by a strong foul smell. He wanted to arrange a meeting with one of the girls, although she—understandably!—declined the offer. One of the amateur researchers joined in the séance and said he could feel the glass vibrate as it started to move.

In the next hour or so they ‘contacted’ an occupant of the Church, spelling out the initials ‘T.M.’—previous rectors of Borley include Thomas Muriell (1680-1709) and Thomas Massenger (1454-1460). ‘TM’ was asked if he was alone in the church?—No—Did he like it there?—Yes—Did he ever come out?—No—Was Harry Price there and were his stories correct? At this the planchette swung wildly around in circles in the middle of the board giving no response either way. One of the girls asked for a positive sign that the ‘spirit’ was present inside the church, and although TM readily agreed, we waited for several minutes and nothing happened. “He must be weak,” said the psychic investigator. Lee and I nodded knowingly.

By now it was light, and people started to disperse, some huddling down in their sleeping bags on the porch to get some sleep, others wandering off to their cars to get something to eat.

I managed a couple of hours sleep lying in the grass beside the porch but woke up at about half-past seven freezing cold. The sun soon warmed me up. It was going to be another hot day, and across the Stour valley towards Suffolk a sea of mist lingered in the hollows and swirled among the trees. Lee and I felt hungry, thirsty and tired, but we lingered in the churchyard after everyone else had left, taking photographs and ciné film of the church.

At about nine, a Mrs Proudfoot came to unlock the church door. She regarded our presence with wry amusement, and mirthfully asked if we’d seen or heard anything.

The Church is quite old—it dates to the twelfth century, and according to the handbook available inside, a wooden structure probably stood there in Norman times. There’ve been 54 rectors since the first one in 1236, although Borley aficionados are familiar with the names of the last few—the Bulls, Lionel A. Foyster and Guy Smith. The Rectory was built in 1863 by the Reverend Henry Bull Snr., although it was his son and namesake (also a keen Spiritualist) who promoted the hauntings at the Rectory. His successor, the Reverend Smith were quoted as saying the Rectory was not haunted, although a look at his private correspondence reveals that he believed otherwise.

It was his successor, the Reverend Foyster, who recorded much of the spirit activity. Poltergeist activity seemed to focus around his wife Marianne, and messages to MF appeared mysteriously on the Rectory walls. I think it was the Foysters who built a summer house especially to watch the Nun on her regular sojourns through the Rectory garden. The Rectory was rented to Price in the late 1930s, and he made it famous with his book, The Most Haunted House in England, published in 1940. The Rectory burned down in 1939 and was demolished completely six years later.

The interior of the church is dominated by the monumental tomb of the Waldegraves that occupies the north side of the nave. It’s 14 feet high and is composed of two effigies, both with hands clasped in prayer, the first of Lady Waldegrave, the other her unnamed second husband. An elaborate canopy rises above the slumbering figures and is supported by six Corinthian columns. The inscription reads, “Lo’ within this tomb lies Edward Waldegrave and (with him) Frances, formerly the companion of his bed, but now of his grave.” It’s adorned with the effigies of the five Waldegrave children, Charles, Nicholas, Marie, Katherine and Magdalin. The tomb was obviously once painted with bright colours but these are now faded & dusty, and the stone is painted to look like marble.

Next to the tomb, mounted high on the wall, is a kneeling effigy of Magdalin Southcote (“Waldegrave’s daughter and Southcote’s only spouse!”). At the eastern end of the Church stands the altar, beneath an elaborate stained glass window depicting the Crucifixion. On the southern wall are two more stained glass windows dedicated to H.D. Bull and J.P. Herringham (these are described in the handbook as “very pleasant”). The western end of the church comprises the tower (built in the 1400s) and the font.

It was in this area that lights were filmed, and heavy asthmatic breathing recorded. A framed yellowing photograph hangs on the wall showing the junior Bull on the occasion of his marriage in 1911, looking a bit like Wyatt Earp with a big handlebar moustache (Lee took this outside and re-photographed it). There’s an organ on the southern wall of the nave and Lee and I discovered a carved pentagram with 666, runic letters and an inverted crucifix writ beneath, carved on the lid. On the walls of the church, people have carved their initials and the date into the stones; one on the north wall of the nave dates to the early 17th century and another in the porch is dated 1722.

Lee and I were soon alone, the last group of people climbing into their car and driving away. I found the family plot of the Bulls at the eastern side of the churchyard where Henry Bull Jnr. and Snr., plus a wife and daughter are buried. The churchyard is full of yew trees that have been clipped into smooth shapes, with large round bases and a gravel path wends its way between these to the 16th century brick-built porch and the front door.

As we took photographs, I noticed a woman striding determinedly towards us from the Cottage opposite. She came to the churchyard wall, leaned over and angrily demanded that I stop taking photos of her house as this was “an invasion of privacy.” She was quite irate at first, but after I’d explained that I wasn’t in fact taking pictures of her house and that we weren’t any part of the “shenanigans” of last night, she calmed down and even half apologised. Later, as she drove past us in her car she waved, so we seemed to have won her over.

I can fully appreciate her anger. The locals must be heartily sick of the very mention of Borley Rectory by now, and no doubt regard the incursions of the numerous cranks and thrill-seekers (including us, I suppose) with at best mild amusement and at worst utter contempt. The guidebook to the church contains a short paragraph near the back which suggests the local attitude; “There are, of course, those who suggest the church itself is haunted. Many old churches and buildings have chill areas which some would class as ghostly, but those who have lived long in the village and we who worship in the church have not experienced anything which would support such thoughts.”

Later in the afternoon we got sceptical opinions from the Church Warden and his wife and Mrs. Proudfoot: “You’re wasting your time y’ know” said the Warden as his wife laughed. “There are no ghosts here, never have been. . . .”

We intended going to Sudbury for something to eat—we had half an hour or so to spare until the pubs opened and our target was a pub lunch—so we sat in the church in the quiet of the sunny morning. Everything was deathly still apart from the whine of an occasional fly that buzzed at the windows or the muffled chirp of a bird in the trees outside. Gradually, as we sat and listened, we became aware of tiny scrapes and bumps and bangs coming from the altar region of the church. We both noticed a subtle change was taking place; the quiet pious aura typical of a country church was replaced by one less benign.

We felt sure that the air temperature was dropping, and as I stood beside the Waldegrave tomb I became so chilled that the flesh on my arms stood up in goosepimples. We sat in the pews beside the tomb, straining our eyes and ears towards the increasingly unnerving noises, which perhaps were caused by birds coming and going in the roof, or the stirrings of slumbering bats, which we’d seen a lot of last night as they flitted between the yews. But some of noises sounded too odd.

At times we got quite alarmed and left the church in a hurry, only to pluck up courage once we were out in the sun and creep back in. In an effort to determine where exactly the noises were coming from, Lee sat in a chair beside the altar, which was dedicated to the memory of one of the Bulls. The noises just as suddenly ceased, and we heard nothing. Yet when we resumed our position in the pews the shufflings and surreptitious scraping recommenced. It sounded as though someone were moving around beside the altar, trying to be as quiet as possible but not quite managing it.

I left to write up what we had heard in my notebook and Lee stayed on inside but came running out after hearing what he described as something approaching him across the floor. Inside again, we both heard a noise that sounded as if someone was padding very quietly up the carpeted central aisle. At one point Lee thought I’d whispered something barely audible in his ear, and was shocked to turn around and find me standing across the church by the door. We both heard vague, gravelly footsteps outside, ran out to investigate and weren’t really surprised to find the churchyard deserted. Lee also experienced a chill area beside the font.

All of this of course can probably be put down to the stirrings of our over excited imaginations. Subconsciously perhaps, we believe the church to be ‘haunted’ and want to experience something to confirm our faith, and so our ears and minds seize on every click and creak and magnify it. The guidebook claims the church does have chill areas and noises, and these latter might be caused by the contraction and expansion of ancient timbers as they’re warmed up and cooled down each day. Still...

At 12.30 we left for Sudbury and ate a hearty meal at the Casa André before walking the couple of miles back to Borley. It was very hot and the sweat prickled our faces and made the journey, for me at least, very uncomfortable. Once back in the church we noticed the atmosphere was again placid and unremarkable, but sure enough within ten minutes the unsettling raps and clunks began again.

During the afternoon several groups of elderly walkers made their appearance, looking round the church or kneeling for a little private prayer in the pews, making us wonder how on earth we could ever be frightened by the place. One of the Ipswich psychic researchers made an appearance again, a tall plump chinless man with a plump well-fed kid and a similar-looking wife, and sounded interested in what we had to say. He said that if we were staying the night maybe he would come back later and stay with us a while, although his wife didn’t seem too pleased at this idea.

We passed the rest of the sunlight hours lounging around on the grass outside or in the porch of the church. We wanted to spend a night actually inside although everyone we spoke to about it said they didn’t rate our chances as there’d been a lot of damage caused by people allowed in before. At about seven, the white haired Church Warden and his good-humoured wife came to lock the door and turned our requests to stay inside down point blank and made me for one feel rather foolish.

Later on Mrs. Proudfoot came along to lock up and seemed surprised when she discovered this had already been done. She again gave our rather weak and half-hearted attempts to be allowed in for the night short shrift: “No one is allowed to stay inside now. The last group who did so were accompanied by a set of rather weird people who refused to leave in the morning. We had to call the police.” To be honest, I was thoroughly scared by the prospect and secretly relieved we weren’t going to make it in.

So, leaving a note in case our psychic researcher companion should honour his vague promise to return, we set off back to Sudbury for a drink at The Anchor. Our sleepless night was catching up with us. We both felt absolutely knackered and the prospect that awaited us hardly helped. It was pitch black as we walked back. We stuck to the road all the way because our route across the fields looked menacing and difficult to negotiate in the starless night. We got to the church at half-past eleven. Keeping our nervy instincts under firm control we strode with forced nonchalance through the darkness, collected our bags from where we’d hidden them beneath a yew tree and prepared our meagre sleeping arrangements.

Luckily we’d brought candles with us (appropriately enough they were “Price’s Candles”) and thankfully lit a dozen of them, which gives us some measure of light and heat to the bleak porch. It’s a windy night; the trees around the churchyard are swaying and sighing and the darkness beyond the feeble pool of flickering light is impenetrable. I’m trying not to concentrate too much on its presence.

I am ‘in bed,’ huddled beneath my blanket trying studiously to ignore all sounds by writing this.