Vincent;
I just got my book, first edition of The Most Haunted House in England. The inside front page is . . . . .an illustration of Borley Rectory almost as if it were the frontpiece of the book.
I was totally blown away by the article included in the book. It is amazing on several levels to me. One, it is from 1938, just before Price's book came out. Two; it is a whole page out of a paper. Three; the article makes a mish-mosh of things regarding Borley Rectory, naming the Smiths and then obviously talking about the Foysters. I have no idea who the reporter was but he must've felt it was a story so unimportant he didn't feel the need to get the names and facts correctly.....(?) Four, there is a story about the nun I've never heard before!!! Now with the credility which I just informed you, how much credence can be put into this story? I will send you a copy, but to make it nice and fast I'm going to type the whole article here for you:) One stipulation, please tell me what you think of the nun story, I'm dying...oops in this case I will say I'm ANXIOUS to know your opinion. - Barbara Clements
From King Features Syndicate, Inc. Copyright 1938
"Maybe there are no ghosts but this panicky dominie's family would like to have it proved!
Spooks rout a rector
By Frank Catton
First of all, let us concede there are no ghosts on earth. You know and I know that a white curtain flapping through the open window of an empty house, the swinging of a rusty hinged shutter we know that almost all the ghost at large may be traced to such simple sources.
Well as you and I know that, we do not know it half as well as the Rev. G.E. Smith of the Church of England knew it when he was called to be a rector of Borley, a little town in Suffolk within sight of famous Colchester, within an hour's drive of London, in a practical, prosperous community. Cultured, intellectual, the Rev. Mr. Smith smiled at suggestions that Borley Rectory was haunted.
That was more than five years ago. Today, Borley Rectory is vacant-that is, there are no human living people there. The Rev. and Mrs. Smith have fled in fright from what they saw and heard and felt in the ancient church and rectory.
Of course, you and I know that he saw no ghosts. Ghosts do not go clanking around the countryside in the ero of radio, airplane and submarine. But the Rev. Mr. Smith may be forgiven if he is not so sure. And his brothers of the cloth, who have listened to his narrative and visited the scene, may be absolved of superstition when they refuse to take his place there. The Bishop has had to merge two parishes and operate Borley Church from a neighboring town to allow Borley the rite of religion.
Yet, you do not have to believe word a word of the testimony of the rector and his wife or the weird legends of the countryside. You can go and buy the rectory for less than $25,000. a genuine bargain for the picturesque building of 25 rooms.
But before you decide to buy it, you might wait for the publication of a book which the Hon Harry Price, secretary of the University of London Council for Psychical Research is now completing.
The Hon. Secretary Price and a committee of other incredulous scientists have spent many weeks studying the phenomena of the church and rectory and-this is somewhat diquieting-they cannot explain it. The extraordinary events described by the rector and others did take place, they assert, as sstated or substantially so. Sheafs of solemnly sworn documents give an impressive foundation for the spiritual activities described. On the first day of the clergyman's occupation, Mrs. Smith heard a plaintive call, "Marianne, dear" as she bustled about the boudoir. The muffled voice appeared to emanate from the walls. That night the rector heard footsteps as from the roof and an odor as of burning meat pervaded the building. Soon after, Mrs. Smith glimpsed a gaunt figure in plum-colored dressing gown in the hallway!
Repeatedly, in the days that followed, Mrs. Smith found pencilled notes, in childish feminine writing: "Please help, get-----" and "Marianne, please help" and similar appeals, including "Get light, mass and prayers here". White faced and fearful, the rector sought to trace the appeals but got nowhere, literally. Stricken ill, Mrs. Smith went to bed. She was wakened by a force which flung her to the floor and hurled the mattress over her. Invoking divine protection, then, the rector, followed by his wife, went from room to room sprinkling holy water on walls and floor. Suddently Mrs. Smith screamed. A stone, as big as the rector's fist, struck her on the shoulder. As she sought refuge in sleep that night, Mrs. Smith was struck under the eye with a heavy weapon. Searching the room, the rector found a heavy hammer head with a broken handle near the bed, apparently the instrument of attack.
Rector Smith was struck on the head on another night. One morning, as they slept after sprinkling holy water, the besieged couple were drenched with water. In the woodwork, fire broke out. Red pepper was thrown into their faces.
But the Rev. Smith was not of the stuff that surrenders to spirits without a struggle.
Despite the evidence, he refused-even as you and I-to admit ghosts or any of their ilk existed. He talked to Mary Pearson, the maid. She told him that the previous rector had died in the house. A plum-colored dressing gown? Yes, he used to wear one, she said. The maid accepted the manifestations as commonplace. Everyone in town knew of them, she said, as if she were discussing Autumn foliage. The previous rector had seen a coach and four stop at the rectory, then drive on, and everyone knew there was a young woman sealed in one of the walls! Now on July 28, she said, they might see----
Stuff and nonsense, the rector protested, and would listen to no more. But the household stayed awake on the night of July 28 and down the steps a white figure, apparently in the robes of a novice in a nunnery, drifted and disappeared into the vague black shadow which passed to the sound of steel on stone, as of galloping horses! They did not sleep well in the rectory after that! But the maid was not alarmed-she had often seen the white figure, sometimes at prayer in the garden! Mystified, the rector explored the history of the old house. He found it had been build on the foundations of a 14th century monastery which was joined by a subterranean passage to a nunnery miles away. The garden had been a graveyard. Tradition told that a novice had eloped with a lay brother in ancient days from the monestary and they had driven away in a coach and been recaptured. The brother was hanged (part of article missing here)time after the capture said the legend, and the nun sealed alive in the wall.
Valiantly, the rector remained, defying the appearance of lights in vacant rooms, or eerie noises, of agonized messages on the wall-in which nothing was found. The Council for Psychical Research came then to clear the imp-infested air and found far more than the scientific investigators anticipated. Just what they think of it all will not be known until the Honorable Secretary's report, in book-form, is published. In the meantime, the Borley Rectory is for sale that is attractive-if you are sure you don't believe in ghosts!"
By way of helping to identify the newspaper, etc., this is the back page. Is Charles Neville, really Charles Neville Buck, who wrote The CODE of the MOUNTAINS about 1915? (by W J Watt & Co.)
