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Place and story are little remembered now. The rectory in Essex was severely damaged by fire in 1939. But any old house with an unpleasant atmosphere, especially isolated, damp, dark and unmodernised, was once described as ‘like Borley Rectory’.
Judging by this long ‘story of a ghost story’, the place showed its true nature from the beginning. Many of the incumbent rectors, their families, servants and guests heard and felt ghosts, always malevolent. Crockery flew about and hit people; candlesticks tumbled down stairs; there were whisperings, cries, thumps and bumps. The usual.
Well, odd things do happen in old houses. I have entered rooms which I was immediately desperate to leave. When rumours abound, especially in remote rural places, visitors are primed to expect a haunting; but I have even felt uncomfortable when viewing an anonymous house for sale.
There are still plenty of people who believe in ghosts – cloudy, bodiless phantoms, glimpsed, usually by just one person, before they vanish. Borley Rectory produced headless coachmen and nuns, darkly dressed. Nobody much sees such apparitions now. Ghosts change with the times.
One of Borley’s least explicable disturbances was the ringing of the house bells which summoned servants to various rooms, not only when nobody would admit having pulled them but when the wires operating the old-fashioned intercom system had been disabled. And what about objects taking off across rooms in plain sight, or pictures hung on strong cord suddenly crashing down?
Poltergeist activity has long been linked to hysteria – inevitably, as the word implies, of female origin. And teenagers with raging hormones and confused psyches have been blamed for somehow acquiring the ability to propel objects, lift carpets and even make beds fly.
In 1930, a new rector, Lionel Foyster, was appointed to Borley. He arrived from Canada with a much younger wife, the strikingly attractive Marianne, who had serious gynaecological problems which debilitated her and affected her mental health. Was the stage set for more violent psychic disturbance?
Many thought so, including the notorious, untrustworthy ghost-hunter Harry Price, who undertook several investigations. Where Price went, press, publicity and the public followed, and Borley’s reputation spread, leading, naturally, to further paranormal activity.
Spiritualism, dodgy mediums, ectoplasm, ouija boards and hauntings were of enormous interest to all classes and both sexes from the turn of the 20th century onwards, throughout both world wars, until scepticism and science gradually proved stronger than superstition. But there are still priestly exorcists in the Church of England whose ministry, plenty claim, calms troubled souls – exactly how, we really do not know.
That many people had unusual and disturbing experiences at the rectory is unquestionable, even allowing for exaggeration, emotional turmoil, fear, susceptibility and downright lying. But that the cause was paranormal is unlikely: the house was old, damp, mould-ridden, had bad drains and was subject to occasional seismic activity, all of which can affect both mind and body, causing sickness, hallucinations and physical disturbance.
Sean O’Connor speculates, but does not reach any conclusions. He provides exhaustive details about everyone and everything connected with the house from its beginning, leaving not the smallest pebble unturned. But although he comes up with plenty of historical fact, nothing essentially adds to the story or affects the core questions: was the rectory haunted; and are there such things as ghosts?
I am a sceptic. If you want the most recent scientific opinion, Google ‘Ghosts’ followed by ‘Large Hadron Collider’. You may be surprised.