BORLEY GHOST SOCIETY Essays

The works presented here are submitted by associates of the BORLEY GHOST SOCIETY, and hosted as a courtesy of the web site owner, Vincent O'Neil. Submissions are posted at the descretion of the web site owner, who is not responsible for the accuracy of information or for the opinions voiced by the various authors.

Readers are welcome to comment on these essays, and BORLEY GHOST SOCIETY associates are encouraged to contribute articles in reply to these subjects, or on new subjects. Submit your response here.

Be sure to check out the e-book of Borley Sidelights by Andrew Clarke. He is a resident of Essex, and has done much research into the history and heritage of Borley. He adds his own insights to this constantly growing volume in an effort to flesh out the Borley Legend. Clarke encourages discussion regarding his observations, and invites your feedback.

More general interest essays.


  • Was Marianne responsible for the wall writings? by various writers.

  • Cold Spots by Scott Cunningham.
    "I’m going to introduce overlapping theories concerning Borley Rectory’s cold spots. . . ."

  • ABSOLUTE INTEGRITY – SIDNEY GLANVILLE AT BORLEY by Paul G. Adams.
    "I have a particular affinity with Sidney Glanville and find his role and work at Borley is of ever increasing interest. Glanville must have had good reasons for answering Harry Price’s advertisement and for applying himself in the way he did."

  • Vial Manslaughter Trail, from the files of the Foxearth Historical Society, submitted by Andrew Clarke.
    "This is a sad affair my little man, I am afraid you have been a naughty boy".

  • The ghosts of Borley, by Karen Fowler.
    ". . . .was it all made up for people to believe that Borley Rectory was haunted?"

  • Rape at the Rectory, from the files of the Foxearth Historical Society, submitted by Andrew Clarke.
    "What starts as a simple accusation of rape, and counter accusations of the existence of a brothel, soon evolves into a vicious quarrel between a Borley landowner and the influential vicar of Foxearth."

  • Borley - perspective of an Essex resident, by Karen Fowler.
    "One should leave the private lives of those concerned alone."

  • Sacrilege and Body Stealing from the files of the Foxearth Historical Society, submitted by Andrew Clarke.
    "Refusal of the rector to permit the disinterment of a body."

  • No more filming! by Andrew Clarke.
    "What an insult! It is as personal a space as our living rooms. . . "

  • Experiment trying to place rectory in view of current appearance by Eddie Brazil.
    Part two, wherein he gets some unexpected help.
    "As I photogrpahed where I assumed the drive had been, I struck up a conversation with a pleasant young lady named Joanne. I informed her of my interest in the rectory and she in turn told me she lived in the bungalow which is on the site of the rectory lawn."

  • Scott Cunningham comments on Iris Owen notes.
    "The bottom line is that Borley Rectory evidently had two bricked up windows that were associated with possible poltergeist activity."

  • "Plea to Visitors" by Maureen Shaw.
    "I can well imagine how some of the residents must have felt in the old days when the first mention to the haunting occurred."

  • "EEEEK...My Organ's Haunted!" by Stephen D. Smith.
    "Here are a couple of sections of some digital pictures of a pipe organ that I took recently [with] are shapes that have appeared on a number of pictures snapped at Borley."

  • "To Fear Or Not To Fear," by Stephen D. Smith.
    "Please try to overcome any fears you have about the place. It would seem that whatever you experience won't harm you permanently."

  • "www.skepticsofborley.com," by Stephen D. Smith.
    "I think the Borley Ghost Society has a good mix of members and contributors; and it brings together an array of talents, including historians, theorists, researchers and, yes, skeptics (healthy or otherwise)."

  • "EEEEK...My Garden's Haunted! by Stephen D. Smith.
    "What's particularly interesting...is that you've captured something that has also been snapped at Borley."

  • "Action + Result = Value?" by Stephen D. Smith.
    ". . . .a small amount of action may produce a great result but perhaps of small value."

  • "Is This Evidence Of A Phantom Borley Stagecoach?" by Scott Cunningham.
    ". . .the question of a phantom coach at Borley may be complicated by the possibility that there may be more than one phantom coach. . ."

  • "Ghosts are like a fan," by Barbara Clements.
    "I was listening to Harry Bull speak, trying to answer my age old question; What are ghosts, why do we see them only for brief moments?"

  • "Search for Trevor Hall," by Harry Brown.
    "In the course of preparing a biographical bibliography of Trevor H. Hall, I realized early on that at some point, I would have to deal with the "Hall vs Borley" controversy, no matter how much I would like to focus the work on the two dozen books Hall wrote which were not about Borley. . . .I would appreciate communications from [readers] who have any information concerning Trevor Hall and his work."

  • "Ghosts in our footsteps," by Scott Cunningham and Steven D. Smith.
    ". . . .consider walking away from the patio of the church, for example, and then turn around and take a picture of the empty(?) space behind you."

  • "A look at Trevor Hall and Borley," by Guy Lyon Playfair.
    "People do not become as negative and destructive as he was without reason."

  • "Travels with Dr. Joad," by Harry Brown.
    "I thus learned much more about the adventures of the pair, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy each other. There is now a wealth of information on the Internet about Dr. Joad, who I at first thought was simply willing to play stooge and straight man to Price for free beer and some fun trips."

  • "Louis Mayerling," by Iris Owen.
    "Who is this Louis Mayerling? . . . I have never heard of him in connection with Borley - his name has never surfaced. . ."

  • "Study of the Borley Haunting" by Carol Gist.
    "There is a story which received some attention in 1944 due to a Life magazine article which contains a photo of a floating brick. Being quite interested in the Borley story and some of the facts relating to certain unexplained phenomena, I began to search for evidence of truth to the story myself by examining the old photos shown on the Borley Rectory website, and by studying the proof found in the ruins of the rectory by Phillip Burn in the 1950's."

  • Rebuttal - Part One, by Tony Broughall.
    "The legend of the monk and nun, which we have just destroyed. . . . but let us note that there never was a nunnery at nearby Bures, just as there was never an eight mile tunnel from Borley to Bures linking the two. Eight miles indeed!!!!!!"

  • Rebuttal - Part Two, by Tony Broughall.
    "Too often researchers choose to ignore simple natural explanations in order to fit and support the ghosts they seek to prove. I have spent too many nights in cold and drafty locations without seeing or hearing anything remotely paranormal. That includes a night in the porch of Borley Church with two other researchers, which turned out to be the coldest May night ever to be recorded in this country."

  • "The Extraordinary Visit," by Peter Quiller.
    "Nothing remarkable happened at first, other than a collection of rather strange objects "fell" on us out of the slate grey sky! There was a large twig with fresh leaves attached, a bronze coin, a small, blue, bird's feather and a yellow flower. Nothing too remarkable about that except there was absolutely nothing overhead, which might have dropped such a strange collection, at least as far as we could determine."

  • Trevor Hall by Alan Wesencraft.
    "I have never met anyone who had a good word to say for [Trevor Hall]."

  • "The Denny Densham recordings" by Peter Quiller.
    " I accompanied Denny Densham, my father-in-law, on all his visits to the site. In fact I am the 'Peter' mentioned on the tape when we were sitting in the choir stalls and had something hurled at us! I remember the queer 'lights' that we saw, which first appeared in the curtains at the font end of the church. These elongated into strips and then rather like those strange 'Mysterons' in 'Captain Scarlett', they 'flowed' over the pews towards us. If that object had not been thrown with such a force I don't know what we might have gone on to see and witness."

  • "Price, Hall, Scholarship and Class"Joseph Boughey.
    "Unless someone, somewhere, deposited some unimpeachable detailed evidence, in some archive, or solicitors or private records, we will never know what really went on. I doubt if this will ever happen, so we are left with speculation, more or less informed."

  • "Ivan Banks, Senex Taurus, and the Sugar of Lead" by Sunex Amurex.
    "I will never forget the excitement of reading Harry Price’s books on Borley Rectory for the first time, forty years ago. . . .It was Harry Price’s deadpan narrative that made the books compulsive reading. It represented a masterly manipulation of the materials. He was a fine writer. Though related with what seemed a straightforward, almost academic style, the text showed where Price’s sympathies lay. Ornaments did not fall over, they flew across the room. ‘as if by an unseen hand’. Bottles do not drop but are ‘hurled’. People whose head could not be clearly distinguished in poor light, or at a distance, were described as ‘headless’." "

  • School essay by Joseph Olding.
    "The Bulls were wealthy landowners and had lived in the nearby hamlet of Pentlow for time out of mind and were considered extremely respectable. For awhile Bull lived in Borley Place, a cosy sixteenth century house next to the church. But, as his family was increasing it became foreseeable that he would not be able to house them all in Borley Place. He chose a spot just across the road next to a cottage, which he planned to turn into a coach house. Some people thought it a little strange that the spot that Bull had chosen had previously held host to a building but which was now vanished."

  • Review of We Faked the Ghosts of Borley by Jamas Enright.
    " The main problem, and this is the point, is that it is very difficult to establish the veracity of the book. Not just the claims of Louis Mayerling involved with Borley Rectory, but also his other claims of being involved with some famous people of the time."

  • Review of We Faked the Ghosts of Borley by Sunex Amurex.
    "Trevor [Hall] would have been delighted by Louis Mayerling's book, which purports to be an eye-witness account of the hauntings of Borley Rectory. Louis paints himself into some of the more famous scenes, like a sort of literary 'Forrest Gump'. There he is, within the busom of Bull Family life, here he darts, attending Rev Guy Smith's last service; up he pops, the confidante of Marianne, and Lionel Foyster; In he bursts, leading Lawrence of Arabia and George Bernard Shaw into the building for seances. What first appears as a serious account is, in fact, a clever, witty and tongue-in-cheek novel written in the first person and blending historical characters into a slightly fantastic tapestry."

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