I think that the main interest in Borley is how this whole phenomenon arose - the events themselves, the people at the Rectory (not least Marianne), Price and later investigators, the publicity, the believers and detractors, those who sought fame (Mayerling, perhaps?), and, increasingly, those who are still or newly interested. 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.
It would be interesting to know more about the trio of SPR investigators. Eric Dingwall did carry out other investigations, but Mrs Goldney, notwithstanding the allegations about her relationship with Harry Price, is a more shadowy figure. It might help to further explanation if further details about these two were produced. What sort of people were they, and what other events took place in their lives? Perhaps more details about them could be sought through the website.
I have read other books by Trevor Hall, notably his debunking attack on Harry Price. Mr Hall seems to have evoked extreme dislike and distrust in some, but his books bear a studious air, and if they are really wrong about Price, their details should be comprehensively checked and refuted. If we bear in mind that Mrs Goldney knew Price well and actually went to Borley with him when some of the phenomena were manifested, there must have been details (if only suspicions) which she provided to Hall.
Hall's books are compelling, and his forensic examinations of "theories" about the Sherlock Holmes stories are amusing. The latter, with their somewhat "tongue in cheek" examination, may provide some clues about Hall's attacks on Price and the Borley story. Hall certainly presents the case for the prosecution about both Price and Borley in a scholarly manner, but one which is perhaps just a bit too overtly "scholarly". I would suggest that this reflects the peculiar position of the English universities, and their command over scholarly work, in the eyes of the English middle class in the years before the mass expansion of the 1960s. There was a simultaneous admiration for the small minority who then managed to go to universities (especially Oxford and Cambridge), with a resentment of their apparent grasp over matters intellectual and scholarly. For people from the lower middle class, there was a resentment of the ease and legitimacy over comprehension which a university education seems to provide, and a desire both to ape and devalue the kind of work which universities produce. This could extend to the production of work which would appear both to attain academic standards and to entertain the reading public. (One might extend this to the resentment of those who went English public schools or attained particular professions, with the apparently secure social position which these brought)
Some may find this assertion strange, but I have recent evidence of this. I belong to a society which is dominated (mostly) by retired men, who carry out investigations into transport history. Recently, some members launched an attack upon academics whom, it was said, were seeking to take over the society, despite the fact that there are only a handful of members who are university staff. It transpired that a number of people who felt that the kind of work produced by academics posed a threat to the work of non-academics, despite the middle class origins of most of the latter. The impression given was that these university people were looking down on those who had not experienced university, and that their own work was devalued in consequence. This also involved snide caricatures, which suggested that these dreadful academics were producing pretentious work of no value. The only explanation of this odd development (happily, since terminated) is the fear, envy and resentment of one group of middle class people for another group within the same class.
I think that both Price (witness his attempts to attach both himself and his library to the University of London) and Hall (apparently a self-made but prosperous Yorkshireman) both sought to develop an air of careful scholarship which might, as they would see it, match the kind of scholarly work produced by university staff and alumni. The careful language, and the footnoting in Hall's work, would suggest this. It would also, however, indicate that inconvenient evidence which could detract from the persuasiveness of a carefully constructed case would be excluded. Both authors are attempting to persuade their audience, not just about the material presented, but about their own legitimacy, as apparently disinterested observers, only concerned with the truth. They are not presented in the context in which much university work (even some of the poorest) is generally presented - for discussion by others in the same scholarly field.
The problem is that this sort of presentation serves to muddy waters which are already opaque through continuously agitated sediment! This mirrors the ways in which all manner of evidence of psychic phenomena and survival are corrupted. Perceptions of such phenomena may be deeply subjective and hard to verify - witness the failures of experiments in what purport to be scientifically controlled conditions. For some, claims over psychic abilities or evidence bring notoriety or (more often) a form of fame, to what may be dull and unfulfilled lives. Again, for many middle class people, brought up with a sense of career coupled with pressure for conformity, faced with a realistic prospect of a mundane life, real psychic evidence (if such it be) might not be treated as private, but as an opportunity to gain an distinctive position in society. To add faked evidence, when any real evidence is too mundane to assure continued fame, must be seriously tempting. This could apply both to the people at Borley, and to Price. Even Hall and his associates gained position by attacks on Harry Price.
My own position is one of agnosticism towards the question of survival, and certainty about a core of psychic evidence, despite all the nonsense which has surrounded the latter. Unlike many, I feel that the debunkers who seek to expose the fakers of psychic phenomena are correct, and for that reason Hall and his colleagues provided a useful case for the prosecution. The problem is that the debunkers seem to think that one proven fake means that all possible evidence is faked. If only someone with no axe to grind, no position to attain, and no book to publish, had investigated the events at Borley, there might be some prospect of an authentic assessment of the evidence. As it is, those involved made the whole affair hopelessly compromised.