PARANORMAL ESSEX PLAYED YESTERDAY ON BBC ESSEX - BORLEY RECTORY - THE EERIE SIDE OF OUR COUNTY

 During the 20th century, Borley became well known for the 'Borley Rectory Affair', involving the supposed haunting of a Victorian rectory (demolished in 1944). 

In spring 1929, the psychical researcher  Harry Price generated a story that captured the attention of the nation and convinced many of the proof of the permanence of the spirit after death. His research activities were published by the press of that time, and Price published several popular books on the subject that brought him considerable fame. After Price's death, the story began to unravel under the scrutiny of experts from the Society for Psychical Research. The Society went through the records with great tenacity, suspecting that Price had exaggerated evidence to sensationalise events and to suggest supernatural causes for mundane phenomena. Any possible evidence of ghosts was irredeemably contaminated by Price's behaviour and the manipulation of the facts in his two books, The Most Haunted House in England and The End of Borley Rectory, produced after World War Two. 

Just under twenty years ago, I researched and wrote Folklore of Essex and also covered this Borley story, outlining the mysterious fire that occurred in February 1939.  Villagers had reported seeing lights in the ruins before the whole building was demolished in 1944.  When the site was cleared, part of a skull, believed to be a woman's, was found in the debris, together with church ornaments.