The Borley Rectory Affair | The Dark Histories Podcast

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When Harry Price published his first book covering Borley Rectory in 1940, he would have been well aware of how sensational, and potentially controversial, the title would appear. “The Most Haunted House in England” shot Borley Rectory to fame, cementing the name in history with the likes of Jack the Ripper, The Salem Witch Trials and later, The Amityville Horror. That the contents of the book stirred up so many years of controversy is an outcome that was bound to have materialised regardless of the title, with stories of spectral nuns, monks and horse-drawn carriages, ghostly writings on the wall and secret passages, all set in the spiritualist boom between the wars. Tables tipped, planchettes moved, bells rang and eventually the house burnt to the ground. Eighty years later, the legend of Borley still lives on fighting against allegations of fraud all the way.

Sources

Price, Harry (1940) The Most Haunted House in England. Longmans, Green, UK

Price, Harry (1946) The End of Borley Rectory. George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., UK.

Dingwall, Eric J., Goldney, Kathleen M. & Hall, Trevor H. (1956) The Haunting of Borley Rectory - A Critical Survey of the Evidence. Proceedings for the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 51, Part 186, January, 1956. UK.

Adams, Paul, Brazil, Eddie & Underwood, Peter (2009) The Borley Rectory Companium. The History Press, UK

`Ωcv|”aqTabori, Paul & Underwood, Peter (2017) The Ghosts of Borley. UK.

Wall, V.C. (1929) Ghost Visits to a Rectory. The Daily Mirror, 10th June 1929, UK

Wall, V.C. (1929) Weird Night in Haunted House. The Daily Mirror, 14th June 1929, UK

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The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

[cutekanjii]

Borely rectory was one of the first things of the paranormal/ghosts etc that I was ever exposed to as a small child finding out about the whole concept of ghosts & hauntings. Since my dad had one of those cheap 10 or 15 page books on ghosts that had pictures and drawings of ghosts and depictions of the events etc and Borely rectory was one of the main stories in the book and I used to be obsessed with looking at it. I remember being very scared of it but fascinated.

[lotusflower]

Ooo, Ben! I can't wait to hear this! The book scared me so much, and that disappearing/reappearing coat...there was a picture of it, and the wall scratchings? 👻 Heading back to listen to the Seance of Rosalie episode before I start this.
Stay safe and well. See you on the live stream.
🌬🌬✌🏻🕊🌈💛🤗
"Say prayers; light candles". 🕯🙏

[smylsie]

Hi Ben, new subscriber here in New Zealand. We’re in lockdown so have a lot of time to pass and your podcasts have been great.

[jonathanneuhaus]

Well done. Having attempted 3 other ludicrous podcasts about same yours was head and shoulders above those and every other haunting I have read. Solid historical research and story telling. You have made a fan this evening.

[anitapeura]

I loved this story from a Readers Digest book I had when I was a child. It included the pictures of the writings on the wall addressed to Marianne, so creepy. Just the kind of thrill adolescents love, but without any of the scepticism, or any mention of syphilis! I was disappointed to discover more of the backstory years later, which is presented here, but that's the loss of the magic of the story, bringing it up into the daylight. This comes in the great history of human storytelling, isn't it wonderful?
I'm disposing of much of my and my mother's libraries right now, and am really sad that libraries, and the myriad stories they tell, are being lost in this era of the internet. I am from a Finnish family, heavily steeped in the ancient tradition of storytelling (Kalevala etc.). Sites like Dark Histories bring some of that magic back, that tradition isn't entirely lost, thank goodness. Thanks so much and kudos to Ben for doing this!

[svenpatrickbecker]

Amazing content, as usual👍i really apprechiate the depth your videos have and the details you include. The amount of research for each episode must be huge.

Maybe you could cover glamis castle in a future episode. Seems like a good topic to me.

Thanks and greetings from Germany

[Madhouse_Media]

I only have one question.... How do you just forget the fact that you have a human skull in a cabinet?

[juneroberts]

Good old Tertiary Syphilis... - always makes life interesting. 🤐

[ImCarolB]

I'm hoping the movie is about the machinations of Harry Price, but I'm not counting on it.

[KurtOnoIR]

What is a rectory? I guess ill have Googled it before too long but its hard to envision what this is. Anyway carry on with the good story 👍

[cutekanjii]

What happened to messages that were appearing on the wall and faces that appeared on the floor? At first they thought it was paradolia but they would get more and more obvious and even change their expressions... Or am I getting mixed up with another big house/building haunting story? Perhaps it was in the same book as the borely rectory story and I've gotten the mixed up. Either way the faces one would be a good story to tell. Yet another story he tells that he doesnt believe in... 🙄 Is there any he actually does? Loads of people heard the bells ringing & footsteps or lights on where there was nobody there, obviously something was happening there. All the nun stuff and elaborate things were just add ons to a real phenomenon to jazz it up and make it more appealing.