Borley Rectory · England's Most Famous Haunted House

Borley Rectory was a Victorian house in Essex that the press came to call the most haunted house in England. A nun was said to walk past the windows. Bells rang on their own, messages appeared on the walls, and stones were thrown.

The best-documented episode began in 1937, when the researcher Harry Price placed an advertisement asking for observers to sit in the building and record what happened. Forty-eight people took shifts over the months that followed and left behind a substantial archive.

The house burned down in 1939. Only the foundations remain. Later investigations concluded that much of the record could not be trusted, and that some of it had been produced by Price himself. The argument has never been settled.

Bureau note: the haunting was investigated twice. The second time is why it is still interesting.

Haunted Ruins / Essex · UK / 1862