Ghost · Borley · Famous
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England's most haunted house, and maybe its greatest hoax.
Stand where it happened
The rectory site is private housing. National Churches Trust says the church is locked and opens only by appointment or for the monthly first-Sunday service. Visit respectfully, as residents have long been troubled by ghost hunters.
Borley: they called the rectory here the most haunted house in England. A nun still walks the lane, they say.
Borley Rectory, built in 1862 beside the church, became known as 'the most haunted house in England'. In 1900 the rector's daughters saw what they took for a nun gliding at dusk. Local lore, retold by Harry Price, said a novice from Bures eloped with a lay brother from Borley by coach. They were caught: he was hanged and she was bricked up alive, and the nun and a phantom coach came back. From 1929 Price investigated and reported footsteps, bells and wall writings. The house burned in 1939 and was demolished in 1944. A Society for Psychical Research study later concluded that much of the haunting was faked or imagined.