Enigma of Borley Rectory

by Harry Ludlum

  Gregson bought the Rectory for some £500, and then insured it for £10,000 - 20 times the purchase price.

  During his short ownership of the place as an intact house, books and other belongings were stacked in the hall, near to the main staircase. If a fire started in the hall, as it did, the danger that it would roar straight up the stairwell and set the upper landing alight very quickly was so obvious that the stacking of their belongings there was monumentally risky.

  One of the two sons states quite bluntly that Gregson bought the Rectory as a real estate venture, and when it didn't pay off out of its reputation, he set fire to it for the insurance.

  When the fire broke out, the Captain sent both boys to phone for the fire brigade, whereas if one of them had stayed the fire might have been contained.

  Gregson gave different versions of how the fire had started to the insurance assessors, and on the basis of an examination of the remains of the Rectory the insurers refuted the claim, in the end settling with Gregson out of court for £750 because it was probably cheaper than trying to fight the claim in court.

  This view of the insurance claim side of the episode was confirmed by Sir William Crocker, who was directly concerned with the claim. Crocker, incidentally, had a jaundiced view of Borley Rectory's reputation as a haunted house.

  Against this evidence for the acceptable cause of the Borley Rectory fire, there is also some evidence for the possibility of a paranormal cause for the fire:

  During the tenancy of Lionel and Marianne Foyster, a skirting board in an upstairs room caught alight and had it not been for the fact that people in the Rectory smelled burning and went to investigate, that fire might well have got a hold. It has been alleged more than once that this was not the first time that a minor fire had started in the Rectory without obvious cause.

  At a planchette session operated by Helen Glanville at her home in Streatham, a threat was made by a 'communicator', whose identity has never been established, that the Rectory would be burned down, thus revealing the basis for the paranormal events supposedly stemming from an act of murder.

  Eleven months to the day after the planchette prophesy, the Rectory caught fire and was gutted beyond repair.

  During the fire, at least one witness insisted that two figures could be seen watching the Rectory burn, whereas Gregson was equally insistent that only he and the firemen were there. Two figures were reported to have been seen actually standing in one of the windows of the burning building, of which one appeared to be a man in a cloak, whilst the other was just a blurred form.

  A female psychic colleague to whom the writer mentioned the possibility that Captain Gregson had set fire to the Rectory to get the insurance money, responded by saying:

  'No, I don't think he actually started the fire, but it happened as a punishment for his having bought the Rectory for an insincere purpose, i.e. to try to make money out of its reputation.'

  The lady had not read the story of Borley Rectory, and had never heard of Gregson until the writer mentioned his interest in the case. Whether she was right in her view is hard to say, but in the context of the Rectory's rather unfortunate history, the fire could perhaps be viewed in the following light.

  Borley Rectory and/or the site upon which it stood was at some time the scene of a human tragedy. Those spirits who had been involved in that tragedy tried many times through physical disturbance and séance contact to persuade those who came afterwards to excavate and reveal the truth of what had happened.

  When this was not done, the final resort of causing the place to be burnt down so that someone could then unearth evidence of a tragedy was finalised. With the arrival of Captain Gregson, and his dubious reasons for buying the property, the entities saw their means of revealing the truth by fire, and Gregson became the instrument of their intention. Once the deed was done, Gregson's part was finished, as far as the entities were concerned, leaving him to face the disapproving opinion of a doubting insurance assessor.

  We may never know whether the fire was a fraudulent act or whether it was another of the Rectory's long saga of weird happenings, or whether it was an extraordinary coming together of destiny and human motivation. The writer will leave his readers with the thought that a seemingly normal event was the trigger that achieved a paranormal purpose!

  CHAPTER 15

  James Turner and the Rectory Cottage

  It is with a picture of the life at the Rectory Cottage of James Turner, the writer and poet, that the author will conclude his look at the inhabitants of Borley Rectory and its attendant stable cottage. There is little doubt that many strange things have happened there since the fire, including oddities experienced by the Bacon family who lived in the cottage for a time, but these we will have to leave for another time.

  James Turner purchased the cottage, the ruins of the old Rectory cellars and much of the large garden early in 1947. He lived there for three years, market gardening for a living until 1950, when he and his wife moved to an even more remote hamlet, Belchamp Walter. The couple eventually moved out of the area to Bodmin in Cornwall. James was an interesting man, a lover of poetry for which he is best remembered, a writer and sometimes a painter.

  James Ernest Turner was born in Foots Cray, Kent, on January 6, 1909 and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford. Regrettably, he passed on in 1976. By his own admission, he was never a rich man, and seems in his latter years to have been out of the limelight. According to Mr A. H. Wesencraft, who met James, he had some personal interest in the occult and wrote, among other things, Ghosts in the South West, as well as articles in The Listener, Punch and the Sunday Telegraph, and had at one time, been a schoolmaster in the north of England.

  In 1950, he published an extraordinary and quite delightful book entitled My Life with Borley Rectory, which claimed to detail some months of hair-raising experiences in the Rectory Cottage. It has to be said that the book is a very readable hilarious tall story.

  The central characters were an extraordinary old housekeeper called 'Prescott' and an even stranger wild Irish pianist called 'Ryan'. The would-be villain of the piece was a girl who, in the story, Turner supposedly married; though in real life he married his wife Lucy in 1936, after which they lived for a time at Staplehurst in Kent.

  The plot in this charming book revolved around attempts to steal Borley's lost church plate, which had supposedly been thrown down the well in the remains of the courtyard. What a wonderful tale it was! Tales of old chests crashing down the stairs in the middle of the night, bottles flying in all directions and ghostly figures vanishing behind the church were the backbone of this work; well worth a read if one can still find a copy.

  In the published works about Borley, James Turner had plenty of genuine material for his excursion into novels, but his tenure at Borley was, in truth, not without curious interest in itself. An interesting result of his time at Borley was the low wall he built, conforming to the outline of the old Rectory itself, and within which Turner laid out a sunken garden. Sadly, all that has now been destroyed and, like the great Rectory itself, become just a memory.

  The Rectory Cottage still showed signs of its former use as a coach house in the wheel ruts in the brick floor of both kitchen and dining room. It had been the resting place of the Bull family's own carriage, itself referred to in that household as the 'phantom carriage', according to a more recent but confusing testimony by Marianne Foyster.

  The coach house in later years

  It was an amusing send-up, if true, by the Bull sisters, of the weird coach and bay horses so often reported as careering noiselessly across the Rectory lawn or clattering unseen up the lane outside. James Turner himself was apparently not much impressed by the stories about the coach, and by all accounts didn't really believe them. He did, however, feel that there was indeed something odd about the place, which is hardly to be wondered at, considering its past history, and even allowing for prior knowledge of the Borley Rectory story.

  While his book, My L
ife with Borley Rectory, was a satirical exercise, James Turner's autobiography, Sometimes into England, is a different kettle of fish. Some interesting details were provided by Mrs Lucy Alice Turner, James's wife, in reply to my enquiries. The salient passages from her letter to me read as follows:

  'Dear Mr Banks

  Thank you for your letter. I was interested to hear about your proposed book on Borley but I am afraid I can't be of very much help in giving you any fresh information. It is a fascinating place and the interest in it never seems to die down.

  I can't say we ever saw anything in the way of nuns, phantom coaches, etc., though we used sometimes (on hot summer days) to hear the sound of children's voices and laughter in the old orchard - rather charming really - were they the Bull children? Who knows? - and one hot afternoon I was sitting in the old driveway with the Rectory remains on my left - all very peaceful and quiet when I was rather startled to hear heavy footsteps, but a few feet away, as though someone was walking on bare boards!

  And one evening - or rather late at night - we came home and in the headlights of the car we saw a lean grey cat dash under the car. We got out thinking we had run it over but there was nothing there! And of course there were the usual sounds of smashing crockery in the kitchen and once when I was washing up, the sharp crack of a pistol, just above my head.'

  Regarding the odd business of the grey cat, there is, of course, the possibility that a real cat, on being struck by a car, could have been thrown into a hedge or to the side of the road, but against this, having got out of their car to look under it for the injured animal, it seems quite reasonable that James and his wife would also have looked around for signs of the animal.

  Whilst one might feel that prior knowledge of Borley could lead to the experiencing of phenomena, the writer feels that James and Lucy Turner's experiences as related only serve to confirm occurrences already recorded long before. In addition, the experiences of Edward Cooper and his wife during the First World War show us that the stable cottage as well as the Rectory had its fair share of strange happenings.

  The reported incident of the laughing children is rather intriguing and in spiritual terms it does rather suggest a period in the old Rectory's history when the Bull children were young. This also prompts me to take a look at the character of the Rectory itself in respect of these disturbances.

  Harry Price was among those who have commented on the apparent change from the atmosphere of the Rectory during the heyday of the Bull family as compared to the less than pleasant atmosphere in the place during its declining years. One could find some sympathy with the idea that when the Bull children were young Borley Rectory was a happier place, the ghosts and phenomena being accepted as part of life in the house; whereas later inhabitants found such happenings something of an intrusion into their lives to say the least, and the Rectory itself a cold, run-down and rather depressing place, much in want of domestic servants to assist in creating a more friendly and lively environment.

  There are many ways of looking at the apparent change in the atmosphere at Borley Rectory over the years. Those who are interested in the spiritual side of hauntings might, for example, lean to the view that the large and generally happy Bull household soaked the building with an atmosphere that percolated through another dimension to the spirits of those departed characters from the history of the site, thus perhaps providing an open channel of contact coupled with some degree of stability.

  The Bull family, though surprised sometimes by the phenomena, accepted them and maybe even vaguely understood them, possibly without realising it. When the Bulls were gone, however, those who came after were to all intents and purposes strangers, who could not come to terms with the phantoms and strange happenings, and because of that they caused the whole aura of the place to change, and become a scene of rejection and defensiveness, resulting in the increase of disturbances.

  One wonders whether in fact some sort of break in family unity resulting from the departure of the sisters from the Rectory in 1920 was the catalyst for a change in the atmosphere, because it was after this that the whole picture had taken on a different look.

  James's own attitude to the reputation of his home was a trifle contradictory, because in Sometimes Into England he expressed the feeling that most of the stories attached to the place were little more than local tales that often surround old and rambling houses. But he told A. H. Wesencraft that he did consider there to be something most odd about the place.

  On one occasion Turner himself invited a visit from a theatrical group who staged a play in the old Rectory grounds, based on the role of the Waldegraves in the Borley saga, including parts about the elusive nun. There was something of a hope among those present that the ghost nun herself might be induced to appear, but on this occasion the sad-faced little phantom failed to respond, though her reported appearances had not ceased for she was sighted some time after Turner and his wife had left the place in 1950.

  Turner does mention in his autobiography minor incidents such as pressure indentations in chairs in the mornings, such as would be left by a cat sleeping in them, though this sometimes happened when Turner's cats had not been in at night.

  He also tells of the noise of smashing crockery, but dismisses it as nothing out of the ordinary. We know of course that this phenomenon was of old lineage at Borley Rectory, and that consequently James's poor opinion of its significance does not really carry any weight one way or the other.

  One incident did occur while he was at Borley, however, which even he had no answer for. About a month after a terrific storm, which did much damage in the area, including ripping the steeple off Foxeath Church, James was sitting by the priest's door of Borley Church, whilst outside on the road by the gate, a young couple were standing talking. Then there came the sound of someone walking up the path to the church, with one step sounding slightly heavier than the other. This was also accompanied by the sound of a swishing garment but there was nobody to be seen, except for the young couple by the gate.

  Not long after this incident, a lady visitor to the church heard the same footsteps following her up the aisle. She had come to look at the recently refurbished altar, but she got no further than the Waldegrave tomb before hearing the footsteps. She took fright and walked out of the church.

  In more recent years, it has been the church that has more often than not seen any reported or unusual incidents, but mostly auditory.

  One of the reasons for James Turner having come to Borley in the first place was to grow mushrooms in the dilapidated sheds at the back of the property. Although he made a good start, things generally did not work out and two successive failures of crops left him short of money, and an attempt to grow flax also failed. When a buying agent inspected what was thought to be a good crop, the buyer refused to accept it, because it had become infiltrated with weeds. To make matters worse, vibration from low-flying jet aircraft wrecked the mushroom racks, for which the Ministry of Defence refused to pay compensation.

  In 1950, James and his wife decided that Borley was just not an economic proposition, so they put it up for sale, and rented a cottage in the 'outback' at Beauchamp Walter. For a long time, there were no takers for the empty Borley Rectory cottage, until it was purchased, mortgage and all, by the Bacon family, whose experiences there appear in The Ghosts of Borley.

  CHAPTER 16

  Bones and a Tunnel: an Archaeological Aspect

  Now it's time to bring together the details of the two major excavations carried out at Borley Rectory following its destruction by fire in 1939.

  Harry Price described the digging in his second book, The End of Borley Rectory, with notes covering the excavations he supervised during the middle of the war, when bone fragments were found under the remains of the Rectory cellars.

  The most important find, the jawbone fragments, which are thought by some to be the remains of the nun Marie Lairre, were analysed, photographed and later, in 1945, officially buried by the Rev. A. C. Hennin
g at Liston. It was over the period of the excavations that Harry Price was heavily criticised by Messrs Dingwall, Goldney and Hall.

  But the second major archaeological discovery at Borley was when workmen, busy in the lane outside the Rectory grounds, broke through into a tunnel beneath the road, the existence of which had been part of local folklore for many years. These finds, in their turn, were later described by Peter Underwood and Paul Tabori in their book, The Ghosts of Borley.

  The digging in 1943 was carried out under Harry Price's auspices, partly as a result of the fascinating scenario set out by Canon Pythian Adams, and in the presence of Captain Gregson and the Rev. A. C. Henning, who assisted with the work, helped by Mr Jackson, a local labourer. Price himself was limited to overseeing because he was unable to indulge in any strenuous activity.

  For some time, the lack of accommodation locally and the fact that the Rector was unable to find anyone to help with the excavation led to a considerable delay in starting the excavations. It was Canon Pythian Adams who later attached considerable importance to digging up the Rectory cellars in line with the results of his theories, and this in later years was twisted by Price's critics, who suggested that it was only when Adams urged the necessity of carrying out the digging that Price got on with the job.

  In fact, these comments by the Canon were made after Price had carried out the excavations. Furthermore, the later comment about Price's attitude towards his associate Sidney Glanville in not inviting him to the dig has no weight because the Rector's wife confirmed some while later that there was virtually no accommodation in the area and she had only enough room at Liston to put up Price himself. Their helper at the dig, Jackson, had his own home locally.

  Eventually Price got over the problem of accommodation when the Rev. and Mrs Henning offered to accommodate him at Liston Rectory and things at last got under way. Henning then obtained a bricklayer's sieve from Sudbury to help sift through all the rubbish that they would doubtless find.