The Borley Rectory Affair

When Harry Price published his first book covering Borley Rectory in 1940, he would have been well aware of how sensational, and potentially controversial, the title would appear. “The Most Haunted House in England” shot Borley Rectory to fame, cementing the name in history with the likes of Jack the Ripper, The Salem Witch Trials and later, The Amityville Horror. That the contents of the book stirred up so many years of controversy is an outcome that was bound to have materialised regardless of the title, with stories of spectral nuns, monks and horse-drawn carriages, ghostly writings on the wall and secret passages, all set in the spiritualist boom between the wars. Tables tipped, planchettes moved, bells rang and eventually the house burnt to the ground. Eighty years later, the legend of Borley still lives on fighting against allegations of fraud all the way.

Sources

Price, Harry (1940) The Most Haunted House in England. Longmans, Green, UK

Price, Harry (1946) The End of Borley Rectory. George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., UK.

Dingwall, Eric J., Goldney, Kathleen M. & Hall, Trevor H. (1956) The Haunting of Borley Rectory - A Critical Survey of the Evidence. Proceedings for the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 51, Part 186, January, 1956. UK.

Adams, Paul, Brazil, Eddie & Underwood, Peter (2009) The Borley Rectory Companium. The History Press, UK

`Ωcv|”aqTabori, Paul & Underwood, Peter (2017) The Ghosts of Borley. UK.

Wall, V.C. (1929) Ghost Visits to a Rectory. The Daily Mirror, 10th June 1929, UK

Wall, V.C. (1929) Weird Night in Haunted House. The Daily Mirror, 14th June 1929, UK

Clarke, Andrew (2021) The Bones of Borley Rectory. [online] Foxearth.org.uk. Available at: [Accessed 11 August 2021].

----------

For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories

The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories

Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast

Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories

& Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/

Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected]

or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072

or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf

The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.