I live about a half hour car drive from Borley, and have been there on a number of occasions, pumped full of adrenalin, with like minded friends, all out to see something, although no-one ever seems to know exactly what. Up until my latest trip, I confess I have never seen nor heard anything untoward, maybe I was looking too hard, as on the occasion in question, I took my fiancée for his first visit, ever the sceptic he decided before we had even got in the car that "all that paranormal stuff is a load of......". And yes, I must agree I was starting to think like that. When we arrived there was another car load of people sat in front of us out side the church gates.
As anyone else who has visited the site will know, Borley is a very small village, with no street lamps at all, the occasional flood light does come on if you are unfortunate enough to stand or walk into the wrong place! We had prepared ourselves with the obvious amateur "ghost hunters" kit, a torch and a camera and of course the ever faithful thermal underwear!! The torch however wasn't needed as the whole church and surrounding areas were completely lit up by a perfect full moon.
....Oh no I hear you say, not another story of a full moon, howling wind, strange lights. No its not!..Some may think this to be insignificant, it may well be to others, but let me assure you to me and my bloke Mark it certainly had some meaning.
Anyway back to that night. It took us a fair while to pluck up the courage to get out of the car, being that we didn't want to be seen running away by the other party that were also still sat in their car. Reluctantly we ventured out and made ourselves known to the others. It turned out that they had travelled down from Yorkshire with the specific intention of going to Borley. We asked how long they had been there and whether anything had happened, they admitted that they neither had seen anything nor left the comfort of their car. (Mark and I both smiled a knowing smile to ourselves, why on earth would any one travel for four and a half hours just to sit in a car looking at an old church?!)
Whilst we were stood talking to them, we could hear music very silently coming from what seemed like the church, the obvious questions came, is that you? Have you left the car stereo on? We answered no to all these, so searching for a logical explanation we decided that it must be coming from one of the locals houses, though that was probably slightly far fetched as the time was now approaching 2:30am!!
Eventually we persuaded one of the occupants to accompany us for a closer look, I placed myself in the secure position of in between the two of them, just to make myself feel safe!!! As we got closer, it sounded as if the music was coming from the cars, and yes if my memory serves me correctly, it was distinct, out of tune organ music. Feeling brave that we had reached the porch we all became much more relaxed, after all it was just an old church!! We proceeded to venture to the back of the church, taking pictures of everything and anything as we went, with the slight off chance that when we had them developed, something may "show up", on our return journey back through the grave yard we stopped turned round and looked back at our amazing feat towards the porch and doors again, as I looked I could see a clear image of of a man, dressed in top hat and tails standing to the right hand side of the church porch, I automatically took my camera and began snapping away, before looking at the others, no words were spoken, but we all instinctively turned and ran back to the cars. When questioned by the others none of us knew what to say, they'd probably think that we were making it up to scare them, that exact moment, it did not seem so exciting to tell them anything, we stood and took photographs of the group and ourselves before we left, the last photograph we took was of a black cat running across the grave yard, we made our excuses about it being late, said our farewells and left.
The journey home was the most quiet I have ever seen Mark, or myself coming to think of it, I think we both believed that if we didn't talk about it, it would seem less real!! We have spoken since, but we've had time to think about it, we've come up with our logical theories...shadows....imaginations...etc...etc...
As for the photographs, well the ones we took prior to our trip were perfect, the ones of ourselves and the group were fine, however none of those taken of the church or surrounding areas showed anything....maybe we had over exposed or something, who knows, all I do know is the pictures of us taken before the one of the cat came out, but that one itself didn't, all we have left of that night are the photos of our fellow "hunters", and of course our memories.
We are planning another trip there soon, I think just to set our minds at ease as to whether we are mad!!!
Zabby Marriott
From Braintree in Essex