Borley Rectory: The Most Haunted House in England

Borley Rectory: The Most Haunted House in England

For over seven decades, a Victorian rectory in rural Essex held the title of “The Most Haunted House in England.” From the moment Reverend Henry Bull built it in 1863 until fire consumed it in 1939—and even beyond—Borley Rectory was the site of phenomena that attracted international attention: phantom footsteps, a spectral nun, objects hurled by unseen hands, mysterious writings appearing on walls, séance communications that predicted the building’s destruction, and ultimately, human remains discovered beneath the cellar floor. The case remains one of the most documented, debated, and controversial hauntings in paranormal history.

The Setting: A Village at the Edge of the Fens

Borley and Its Legends

The village of Borley lies in northern Essex, near the Suffolk border, in a landscape of gentle hills and ancient churches. The area has been settled since at least the Norman Conquest, and its medieval church of St. Mary the Virgin still stands today.

Long before the rectory was built, local legend spoke of dark history on the site. According to tradition passed down through generations, the land had once belonged to a medieval Benedictine monastery. The monks, it was said, had maintained a secret passage to a nearby nunnery at Bures, across the River Stour.

The central legend involved a forbidden romance between a monk of Borley and a nun from the Bures convent. When their relationship was discovered, justice was swift and terrible: the monk was executed, and the nun was bricked up alive within the convent walls—condemned to die slowly in darkness as punishment for breaking her sacred vows.

Whether any monastery actually existed at Borley is historically uncertain—no definitive archaeological evidence has been found. But the legend would prove eerily resonant with events that unfolded over the following century.

The Building of the Rectory (1862-1863)

Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull

In 1862, the Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull arrived as the new rector of Borley. Finding the existing parsonage inadequate, he commissioned a new rectory to be built on land adjacent to the churchyard.

The resulting building was a substantial red-brick Victorian structure:

• Thirty-five rooms across multiple floors
• A sprawling, somewhat haphazard layout
• Gothic-influenced architecture
• Extensive grounds including a lawn and garden

The rectory was completed in 1863 and would remain the Bull family home for nearly 65 years.

The Site’s Peculiarities

Even during construction, workmen reported feeling uneasy. The building’s location—directly adjacent to the ancient churchyard where generations of the dead lay buried—gave it an inherently melancholy atmosphere.

More significantly, if the medieval monastery legend was true, the rectory may have been built directly over the site of the tragic events involving the monk and nun. The cellar, dug deep into the Essex clay, would have penetrated any surviving foundations from earlier centuries.

The Bull Family Era (1863-1927)

The First Reports

The Bull family—Henry, his wife, and eventually their fourteen children—lived at Borley Rectory for three generations. From the earliest years of their occupancy, they reported unusual phenomena.

The Phantom Nun: The most persistent sighting was of a spectral nun walking the grounds. She appeared most frequently on a path that became known as the “Nun’s Walk”—a tree-lined avenue where she glided silently at twilight.

Descriptions were remarkably consistent across decades:

• A female figure in dark, nun-like habit
• Face obscured or turned away
• Moving silently along a fixed path
• Vanishing when approached or when observers looked away

The Bull family reportedly grew so accustomed to her appearances that they accepted her as part of household life. One daughter later recalled casually remarking to a sibling, “There goes the nun again.”

The Phantom Coach: Multiple family members reported seeing a spectral coach drawn by two headless horses, driven by a headless coachman, careening down the drive at night before vanishing. This apparition appeared less frequently than the nun but was reported by multiple independent witnesses.

Phantom Footsteps: Throughout the building, footsteps were heard in empty corridors. The sounds followed predictable patterns—as if an invisible resident walked regular routes through the house.

The Locked Room: One room on the upper floor remained perpetually locked throughout the Bull family’s occupancy. Legend held that Reverend Henry Bull had sealed it after experiencing something so terrifying that he refused ever to speak of it. The room was never opened during his lifetime.

Harry Bull’s Tenure (1892-1927)

When Henry Bull died in 1892, his son Harry Foyster Bull succeeded him as rector and continued living at Borley. Harry was more openly interested in the supernatural than his father and actively investigated the phenomena.

Under Harry Bull’s watch:

• Sightings of the nun continued
• Bell-ringing without apparent cause became common
• Servants reported encounters with apparitions
• The phantom coach appeared multiple times

Harry Bull reportedly told acquaintances that he had seen the nun clearly enough to describe her face as having a “sad, yearning expression.” He believed she was the spirit of a real woman, trapped between worlds.

Harry Bull died in 1927. The rectory passed briefly through other hands before attracting the first outside investigators.

The Smith Era (1928-1930)

New Residents, Intensified Activity

In October 1928, Reverend Guy Eric Smith and his wife arrived as the new occupants of Borley Rectory. Unlike the Bulls, who had lived with the phenomena for generations, the Smiths were immediately disturbed by what they experienced.

Within weeks of their arrival:

• Servant bells rang throughout the house without anyone pulling them
• Lights appeared in windows of rooms known to be empty
• Footsteps echoed through unoccupied areas at all hours
• Objects were found moved from their original locations
• Stones and pebbles were thrown by unseen hands

Most disturbingly, Mrs. Smith discovered a human skull wrapped in brown paper in a cupboard. No one knew how long it had been there or whose remains it represented.

The Smiths were rational, educated people. They had no interest in being associated with ghost stories. But the phenomena were undeniable, and they needed help.

The Daily Mirror Investigation

Seeking advice, the Smiths wrote to the Daily Mirror newspaper, asking if they could recommend someone to investigate. The paper sent reporter V.C. Wall to investigate and subsequently contacted the most famous paranormal investigator in Britain: Harry Price.

Price arrived at Borley Rectory on June 12, 1929. From that moment, the rectory’s fame—and controversy—began.

Harry Price’s First Visit

Harry Price was the most prominent ghost hunter in Britain. A showman as much as a scientist, he combined genuine investigative techniques with a flair for publicity. His investigation at Borley would become his most famous case—and his most disputed legacy.

During Price’s initial investigation in 1929:

• Stones were thrown in his presence
• A vase shattered without apparent cause
• Keys were heard turning in locks
• Footsteps were heard repeatedly

Price declared Borley Rectory to be genuinely haunted and publicized the case widely. The Smiths, overwhelmed by both the phenomena and the resulting publicity, departed in 1930.

The Foyster Era (1930-1935): The Most Active Period

The New Family

In October 1930, Lionel Algernon Foyster with his wife Marianne and their adopted daughter Adelaide, arrived to be the new occupants of Borley Rectory. Lionel Foyster was a distant cousin of Harry Bull—a connection that suggested the family had some claim to the property.

The Foyster period would prove to be the most intense phase of the Borley haunting. Phenomena that had been episodic under previous occupants became almost constant—and increasingly violent.

The Phenomena Multiply

Lionel Foyster kept a detailed diary of events, ultimately documenting over 2,000 separate incidents during their five-year occupancy.

Physical Attacks on Marianne: Marianne Foyster became the focus of much of the activity:

• She was slapped by invisible hands
• She was pushed down stairs
• She was thrown from bed on multiple occasions
• Objects were hurled directly at her
• She received bites and scratches from unseen sources

The targeting of Marianne would later raise questions about the authenticity of the phenomena—but at the time, the attacks seemed terrifyingly real.

Objects Thrown: The poltergeist activity was relentless:

• Bottles and stones flew through rooms
• Books were hurled from shelves
• Furniture was overturned
• Personal items vanished and reappeared in different locations
• Windows were smashed from inside

The Wall Writings: Perhaps the most mysterious phenomena were the messages that appeared on walls throughout the rectory.

The writings appeared in pencil or charcoal, in a childlike scrawl. They included:

• “Marianne please help get”
• “Marianne light mass prayers”
• “I cannot understand tell me more”
• Various names and fragmentary phrases

The messages seemed directed specifically at Marianne and appeared to be pleas for help from whatever presence inhabited the rectory. More than 2,000 messages were eventually documented before the Foysters departed.

Séance Communications: The Foysters and their visitors conducted numerous séances attempting to communicate with whatever haunted the rectory. Through these sessions, they claimed contact with multiple spirits, including:

• A French nun named Marie Lairre
• Various relatives of previous occupants
• Entities claiming to be from medieval times

The séances provided the first detailed “backstory” for the haunting: Marie Lairre, they were told, had been a French nun who left her convent to marry Henry Waldegrave, a member of a local noble family. She was strangled by her husband and buried beneath the cellar floor in 1667.

This story differed from the original monk-and-nun legend but added a new layer to the mystery.

The Foysters Depart

By 1935, the Foysters could endure no more. Their health had suffered, their finances were strained, and the phenomena showed no sign of abating. They left Borley Rectory, and Lionel Foyster’s detailed diary became a crucial—if controversial—primary source for the case.

Harry Price’s Investigation (1937-1938)

The Year-Long Study

After the rectory stood empty for two years, Harry Price arranged to lease the building for twelve months to conduct a systematic investigation. His plan was unprecedented: recruit a team of volunteer observers, establish round-the-clock monitoring, and document everything with scientific precision.

Price recruited 48 observers—ordinary people with no particular belief in or against the supernatural—and provided them with detailed instructions:

• How to conduct observations
• What phenomena to watch for
• How to document events
• How to avoid contamination of evidence

Over the course of 1937-1938, the team documented numerous incidents:

• Temperature drops
• Unexplained sounds
• Object movements
• Apparition sightings
• The ongoing wall writings

The Séance Predictions

During séances conducted as part of the investigation, Price and his team received communications that would prove eerily accurate.

On March 27, 1938, a séance contact identifying herself as Marie Lairre communicated through planchette:

• The rectory would be destroyed by fire
• The fire would begin in the hallway
• It would occur that very night, at nine o’clock
• Her bones lay beneath the cellar floor

The fire did not occur that night. Price and his team departed, and the lease concluded without the prediction being fulfilled.

But the spirits, it seemed, had merely gotten the timing wrong.

The Fire and Its Aftermath (1939-1944)

The Rectory Burns

On the night of February 27, 1939, the rectory’s new owner, Captain W.H. Gregson, was unpacking books in the hallway when an oil lamp allegedly toppled from a stack of boxes. Within minutes, the building was ablaze.

The fire consumed the rectory almost completely. The walls remained standing—a gutted shell—but the interior was destroyed. The building that had been called “the most haunted house in England” was no more.

The séance prediction had proven accurate in all details except timing. The fire began in the hallway, just as the spirits had said. It occurred almost exactly one year after the prediction was made.

Discovery of the Remains

The ruins stood for several years before being demolished. In August 1943, Harry Price returned to Borley with a small team to excavate the cellar.

Beneath the floor, they found human remains:

• A female skull
• Jawbone
• Other bone fragments
• A religious medallion of the type worn by Catholic religious orders

The remains appeared to be those of a young woman. They had been buried in the cellar for an indeterminate period—certainly decades, possibly centuries.

Price believed these were the bones of Marie Lairre, the murdered nun whose spirit had communicated through séances and whose pleas for help had appeared on the rectory walls.

In 1945, the bones were given a Christian burial in Liston churchyard. The medal was identified as being of 17th-century French origin—consistent with the story of Marie Lairre.

Analysis and Legacy

What Really Happened at Borley?

The truth about Borley Rectory likely lies somewhere between the extremes of “genuine haunting” and “complete fabrication.”

Elements Supporting Authenticity:

• Multiple families reported phenomena independently over seven decades
• Witnesses included educated, skeptical individuals with no particular belief in or against the supernatural
• Physical evidence (bones, religious medallion) corroborated séance communications
• The fire prediction proved accurate
• Phenomena predated Harry Price’s involvement by decades

Elements Raising Doubt:

• Harry Price had motive and opportunity to exaggerate
• Marianne Foyster admitted to some fraud
• The medieval monastery story has no historical verification
• Some phenomena could have natural explanations
• The SPR investigation found serious problems with Price’s methods

Historical Significance

Regardless of whether the haunting was genuine, Borley Rectory established templates that influenced paranormal investigation for generations:

• The systematic documentation approach
• The use of multiple independent observers
• The combination of physical investigation and séance communication
• The involvement of media to bring attention to cases

The case also demonstrated the dangers of mixing serious investigation with publicity-seeking—a tension that continues to affect paranormal research.

The Human Story

Beneath the controversy lies human tragedy. If the séance communications were accurate, a young woman was murdered and buried in secret, her spirit unable to rest for nearly three centuries.

Even if the supernatural elements are doubted, the skull beneath the cellar floor was real. Someone—a young woman, based on the remains—died and was buried there. Her identity, the circumstances of her death, and why she was hidden beneath a building that would become “the most haunted house in England” remain unknown.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “Borley Rectory: The Most Haunted House in England”
• Historic England — Listed Buildings — Register of historic sites
• British Newspaper Archive — UK press archive