Borley Rectory

To Hugh Burnett

Dear Hugh
Do you still require a copy of your documentary? I see someone has posted a link to it on Youtube, so you may no longer require it. However, if you do, please email me on [email protected].
Best regards
Derrick
 
A short animation on Borley Rectory is looking for funding:
'Borley Rectory' is to be an animated documentary about a very famous haunted house. It's a story I've been fascinated by since stumbling across it in the 'Usborne book of Ghosts' back when I was a young boy. The film is to be an exploration of the 'haunting's history' created in a similar 'collage / rotoscope' style as my previous animations. It will not only be an investigation of the facts but also a meditation on why this story - and hauntings in general - continue to fascinate.

My team on this are the trusted team I've worked with on all the projects plus a few very special guests: Avant garde audio darling Doctor Mick Grierson (Goldsmiths) will be providing sound design whilst the score will be provided by legendary composer / Siouxsie & the Banshees founding member Steve Severin.

The voiceover has been performed by celebrated British actor Julian Sands (who has worked with such disparate talent as Ken Russell, David Cronenberg and David Fincher). Producer honours will be going to Tony Earnshaw; celebrated genre author and previous artistic curator of the National Media Museum.
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http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/borle ... production
 
I have finally got round to reading about borley rectory. my head hurts. Could somebody please tell me the truth about borley rectory and harry price, i am in no hurry, by sunday evening will do.:)
 
My understanding is that Marianne faked a lot if not all of it and Harry Price knew or at least suspected this but didn't let it reflect on his findings that it was a genuine haunting.

Feel free to correct me anyone
 
Ten or fifteen years ago there was a Borley Rectory website, curated - to use the modern word - by Marianne's step*-son. It contained a lot about her mental condition as well as ongoing investigations into the site of the rectory.

The website disappeared from view and was blocked from being archived by the usual bots, so there is little or nothing on the wayback machine etc. Only stray pages archived by enthusiasts may still exist; I had nothing in my own vaults, though I remember browsing the site on several occasions.

The detail, though once "published" may be gone for good. :(

Edit 25.07.2016
*It was, as another poster states, her step-son, Mr. O'Neill. Not her son, as I wrote.
 
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JamesWhitehead said:
Ten or fifteen years ago there was a Borley Rectory website, curated - to use the modern word - by Marianne's son. It contained a lot about her mental condition as well as ongoing investigations into the site of the rectory.

The website disappeared from view and was blocked from being archived by the usual bots, so there is little or nothing on the wayback machine etc. Only stray pages archived by enthusiasts may still exist; I had nothing in my own vaults, though I remember browsing the site on several occasions.

The detail, though once "published" may be gone for good. :(
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So what is your understanding of the case James?
 
In a nutshell, as a great enthusiast once-upon-a-time:

Ambitious journalist with sense of lost grandour and damaged woman in complex relationships wishes to meet tabloid readership as "most haunted house in England!"

This is not to deny the spooky tales which pre-dated Price and the Foysters. They tend to be generic - tales of secret passages between monks and nuns being supported by any tunnels in the area!

I loved the Price books when I was a lad but they produced a reverie of the pre-war period in which moneyed volunteers could pop off for weeks at a time to go ghost-hunting, following a press advert.

At twelve, I imagined my life might be a bit like that! :eek:
 
After finishing the book i am more confused then ever, i had grown up thinking the haunting was all a sham and harry price a fraud, but according to this book there was a lot of real spooky stuff going on and price was a good investigator who sometimes let his love of the limelight get the better of him
 
Archive also has The End of Borley Rectory.

It was The End of Borley Rectory which I read way back and it was the source of many an adolescent reverie of ghost-hunting on summer evenings. It's a much longer book than The Most Haunted House in England but it recaps most of the material then adds a lot of extra detail, tracing the decline of the rectory down to its burning, which was probably arson, though I think Price avoids that accusation.

When I last attempted to read it, I was quickly bored by the exhaustive reports of table-turning sessions and the servant-girl gothic of the silly nun-priest tale, supposedly at the heart of the psychic disturbances.

It may yet work its spell on others but it needs to catch you at a certain time. :cool:
 
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I have never actually been to Borley but I've walked the old Long Melford - Sudbury railway line which passes a mile or two to the east. There is a cutting there just about where the road to Borley crosses the line and I experienced one of those middle-of-the-woods type panic attacks there - unnatural silence and stillness but with a sound or feeling of 'buzzing' like a HT line in the rain.

Here - the narrow line on a gentle curve is the old railway line.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...7bd1735a51de!8m2!3d52.041047!4d0.726706?hl=en
 
I visited Borley briefly while spending Xmas at Long Melford. It was late in the day and very atmospheric, although I didn't see or feel anything unusual. However, I was rather nervous about walking back in the unlighted road leading down from the village, because of the possibility of getting splatted by a speeding car. While at Melford I met a local gardener who had grown up as a lad playing in the ruins of the rectory, prior to the building of the new estate. He had no doubts that the haunting was genuine -- for one thing, the church was, he said, still highly active. The latest (at that time, over ten years ago) incident involved two workmen repairing the wrought iron gates. Their welding equipment suddenly cut off, and when they re-entered the church to check the fuses found that the plug had been removed from the socket and had seemingly been thrown across the church. (A year ago the same thing happened twice to my wife, when the plug for the router was twice removed from its socket while she was using her computer in another room.) So I am inclined to think the place was genuinely haunted, however Price may have embellished the evidence.
If I recall, the photo showing a floating brick was alleged to have been taken by an American photographer who later claimed that it had been thrown by a workman demolishing part of the ruin out of frame. However, the camera used probably would not have been capable of freezing the brick's motion as it would have to have done. So another question mark.
 
First time mentioning this publically:

I went to Borley Rectory over 25 years ago with friends.

Two of us walked onto the site of where the rectory had been, two stayed in the car.
After a minute or so the temperature dropped and a mist closed in around us.

We immediately, instinctively, walked back to the our parked car, feeling quite unnerved, scared even.

We then drove away.
About a minute and a half later we encountered a man, mid-forties, with a dog, walking along the road.
Dressed in non-remarkable coat, shirt and jumper.
Clothes which could have been worn any era since the 1930's.
We stopped to chat, and he was pleasant.
He then asked us where we had been, and we mentioned the rectory.
His facial expression hardened and he told us clearly "Do not go there."
We then drove about 40 yards forward.
I turned around to look through the rear windscreen and he had vanished.
Both sides of the road were dense hedgerow, there was no way he could have gone through them, and there were no houses nor had we seen any gates.
We made a U-Turn and drove back and forth several times looking for him, but there was no sight of him.
 
Pretty good summary. Aspel's programmes were always fair and open-minded.
 
Bigphoot2 said:
The only movie to make wallpaper scary! A great film.
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Indeed, my Dad told me about it when I was about 5 years old (and as we all know, it's every son's duty to ignore his Dad) .. so I eventually watched it and he was right .. and it still scares the shit out of me now .. the finest haunted house horror film ever made.
 
Cochise,

..and I experienced one of those middle-of-the-woods type panic attacks there - unnatural silence and stillness but with a sound or feeling of 'buzzing' like a HT line in the rain...

Something very similar happened to me years ago whilst walking along the Keighley Worth Valley railway between Damems and Haworth. Very weird and rather unnerving.

INT21
 
Most of these haunted houses can be easily checked out these days without groups of people running around scaring themselves silly.

Just install remote wireless cameras, day and night vision. Two or three in all rooms and monitor the signals from them from outside the premises.

The you will see if there is anything really happening.

INT21
 
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