During our time at Borley Rectory in 1938-39 we were given a fair amount of anecdotes and reports about the Reverend Foyster's tenure in the [Thirties]. None of them contained any criticism of the Reverend or his family. However, after hearing via my daughter from Mr V. O'Neil of Utah, I am reminded that there are those who even now wish to keep alive the myth of the haunt and, while they're about it, have a little dig at my late father.
One realizes that today's writers tend to build a lot of imagination onto a nucleus of secondhand rumours and taradiddles, and spice the whole thing with a bit of defamation.
I, on the other hand, was there. I'm not spoofed by spooks, and I know what I'm talking about. As a lad of seventeen, with my thirteen-year-old brother Anthony, accompanied Captain Gregson (a kind, upright, honest man much respected by all who knew him, despite the strangely negative way some seek to represent him in hindsight) to Borley Rectory when he purchased it in1938. It was only one - admittedly the largest - of about 40 residential properties which he owned in Essex.
Borley Rectory was built in 1860 apparently by the Reverend Bull upon the site of [a] smaller rectory, to accommodate his 12 children, wife, self and the necessary servants. This must have augmented the Sunday congregations at Borley Church...which by 1938 had fallen to about three plus a Gregson or two. History tells us that the site was originally a priory or convent of some kind, and the so-called haunt arose from a monastic episode which over the years seems to have attracted not only a poltergeist but the much more sinister Elemental. It does nasty things when it emerges from its well - there were three wells.
Stanley Moger, Estate Agent, acted for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in the disposal of Borley Rectory after the parish had been merged with Liston parish; the combined Rector was Reverend A. C. Henning who with his wife occupied the much more comfortable little rectory at Liston, about a mile away. The price paid by Capt. Gregson was 3500 pounds and although this seemed high at the time for a "white elephant" of an unmanageable 20-room red-brick Victorian pile, it was the very spaciousness, excellent construction and fascinating secluded old-world grounds - and the stabling and coach house - that appealed. Across the quiet country road with its shady elms stood Borley's mellowed church (Gothic and rubble-masonry naturally). The only other buildings within half a mile were the Manor Farmhouse and its old barns and duck pond.
There was not a great deal of furniture, and most of it went into the coachman flat for the Gregsons' immediate occupancy; but a load of books, curios, files of documents, trophies and instruments were stacked temporarily in the spacious hallway. Lighting was by oil lamps and candles. Water came from the big geared hand pump in the cloister place, south side of the courtyard. There was, of course, no telephone.
Winter passed. One evening in [February] Capt. Gregson was working sorting books and things, some still not unpacked, at the foot of the main staircase by lamplight. Alan and Anthony were in the flat, going to bed or listening to the wireless. The Capt. rushed in, terribly pale and breathless, and said: "One of you get on your bike quickly, go to the phone box at Borley Green, call the Fire Brigade, hurry! Some books were piled up and they fell over onto the lamp, and now it's blazing up the stairwell!"
Sudbury Fire Brigade arrived very promptly (from about five miles away) but there was no ready supply of water; they went up the road and drew from the farm's duck pond; but by then the flames had reached inside the roof and the roaring was awesome. We felt incredibly powerless in the face of such a huge blaze, and it was heartbreaking to see the destruction right before our eyes.
Fire destroyed the whole central part of the Rectory, but Brigade action halted it near the ends of the two wings. No goods could be saved from the flames. The coach house, being detached, was not hurt.
By dawn, it could be seen that the walls were still standing, floors burnt and most debris fallen into the cellars; obviously the entire building would have to be leveled. (This did not happen for over a year, by which time the War was in progress).
Colonel Buckle (he was as much a Colonel as W.H. Gregson was a Captain) is remembered as attending on behalf of the Capt's insurers. Nobody concerned suggested the cause of the fire as being anything but accidental. The Gregsons' loss was substantial, of course, but they took it philosophically. They did not wish necessarily to rebuild the Rectory, but it was expected that the insurers would meet their obligations, and this of course they did.
Concerning a collection of coins, Capt Gregson was not a numismatist, but after his years of travel in and out of the Army he had an old souvenir boxful of coins, medallions and badges. To have sifted through the ashes would have been totally impracticable, especially for a modest value of around fifty pounds.
I think that's about all, except to point out that it is cheap and easy to impute a crime to an innocent person after they're dead, the way that various authors and amateurs seem to have chosen to do in hindsight, in relation to my father and the Rectory. I believe this is only because it makes the story more "spicy" and mysterious. Let me assure you, as his son, that my father's reaction to the loss of the Rectory was genuine and heartfelt. This is all that I would like to say on the matter.
Alan William Gregson