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Stuff You Missed in History Class: Ghosts of History: The Borley Rectory · Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm editor Candice Keene. You're joined by fellow editor Katie Lambert.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Hello Candice, Hi Katie, I see you have a piece
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  Speaker 1: of correspondence in your hand I do. It's from Vince
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  Speaker 1: in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and he had a suggestion for us,
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  Speaker 1: which actually he titled a burning question and it says, Hi, there,
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  Speaker 1: Candice and Jane. I am a fervent listener of your podcast,
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  Speaker 1: and I have noticed Candice's pensiant for the macab I
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  Speaker 1: thought of a cool topic for your podcast, the Boardly
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  Speaker 1: Rectory in England. I remember reading about it in a
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  Speaker 1: book when I was in grade school and being utterly terrified.
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  Speaker 1: I severely enjoy your well researched and thoughtfully recorded podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: so I know you will enjoy this topic. And we
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  Speaker 1: like that you severely enjoy this How could we say no?
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  Speaker 1: And again a perfect addition to our Ghost of History
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  Speaker 1: multipart series. We were delighted to cover the Boorily Rectory
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  Speaker 1: and um before we get into the history of the
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  Speaker 1: place that the most haunted house in England, we can
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  Speaker 1: start with the basics defining rectory, for instance, which is
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  Speaker 1: the residence of a clergyman. And if you're anything like me,
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  Speaker 1: your interests may be piqued by the fact that a clergyman,
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  Speaker 1: a man of the cloth, the man of God, would
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  Speaker 1: be so spooked by a ghost. It just doesn't seem
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  Speaker 1: to add up, But in fact there were several clergymen
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  Speaker 1: who were scared off by the notorious ghost of the
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  Speaker 1: Boily Rectory. And as I understand the diverging tales of
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  Speaker 1: the house, this is either going to be a ghost
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  Speaker 1: story about forbidden love or ghost story about spousal abuse.
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  Speaker 1: And will start with the legend that the Boiley Rectory
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  Speaker 1: was built where a monastery used to be, and in
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  Speaker 1: the thirteenth century a monk and a nun tried to
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  Speaker 1: elope together, but they were caught and he was hanged,
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  Speaker 1: and she worthy of an Edgar Allen po tail was
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  Speaker 1: bricked up within the convent where she died, and the
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  Speaker 1: Boardly Rectory was built on this place in eighteen sixty
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  Speaker 1: three for the Reverend Henry Bowl, who actually somewhat enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: the hauntings and built a summer house so he could
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  Speaker 1: watch where the nun was supposed to walk while he
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  Speaker 1: was smoking his cigars. And while the Bull family didn't
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  Speaker 1: mind the nun's ghost so much, others were really frightened
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  Speaker 1: by her. Her face would sometimes appear in windows, and
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  Speaker 1: she got so bold as to walk across the lawn
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  Speaker 1: in broad daylight. And when Henry's son Harry took over
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  Speaker 1: at the rectory, the hauntings increased and she was seeing
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  Speaker 1: more frequently, and there were more strange noises and and
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  Speaker 1: haunting like things of this sort. The Bulls weren't particularly
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  Speaker 1: popular either. There were rumors about the older bowl that
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  Speaker 1: um he used a whip on his parishioners, and um
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  Speaker 1: that he possibly was involved with a Dahlia in a
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  Speaker 1: maid when she ended up pregnant, and also that he
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  Speaker 1: was abusive. And he and his son both died in
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  Speaker 1: the Blue room of the Boily Rectory, which then became
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  Speaker 1: known as one of the most haunted places within the house.
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  Speaker 1: So it seems like the ghosts are multiplying in fact,
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  Speaker 1: And in nineteen twenty seven, the Reverend Eric Smith took
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  Speaker 1: ownership of the house, and he'd heard that there were
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  Speaker 1: strange things that happened there, so he consulted the paranormal investigator,
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  Speaker 1: the afore mentioned Harry Price, to determine whether the hauntings
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  Speaker 1: were real or not. And we're going to talk about
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  Speaker 1: Price at greater length later, but I wanted just to
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  Speaker 1: set up this character for you because he is such
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  Speaker 1: a character. He was known for being a prankster and
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  Speaker 1: showing off with his parlor tricks, and he would perform
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  Speaker 1: magic tricks just to show people how they were done
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  Speaker 1: and called the bluff of someone who was trying to
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  Speaker 1: bluff him. So, in a time when people were capitalizing
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  Speaker 1: off wartime tragedy to make money by climbing they could
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  Speaker 1: put people in touch with their dead relatives, he set
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  Speaker 1: out to call out who the frauds were, and in
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  Speaker 1: June nineteen twenty he was elected to Society for Psychical Research.
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  Speaker 1: He wanted to make the business more honest. He wanted
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  Speaker 1: to clear up all the fraud, and he exposed a
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  Speaker 1: lot of phonies, most notably the spirit photographer William Hope
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  Speaker 1: and Hope it taken hundreds, if not thousands, of spirit
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  Speaker 1: photographs and Price was able to show people that this
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  Speaker 1: stuff was really fake. Back then, you had to mix
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  Speaker 1: all manner of chemicals and use all manner, different types
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  Speaker 1: of light and strategies to create a photograph. So it's
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  Speaker 1: quite simple to add a strange shadowy figure in the
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  Speaker 1: background of of a plate. And another way to do
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  Speaker 1: it would be by um having a photographer's assistant appear
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  Speaker 1: in the background of a picture, because it took a
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  Speaker 1: full minute of sitting still with the shutter open for
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  Speaker 1: someone to be captured on film, so it would be
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  Speaker 1: easy for someone to sneak in and dart out and
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  Speaker 1: create an apparition on film. So Price's personality was such
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  Speaker 1: that he loved this sort of stuff, of calling people
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  Speaker 1: out and of making up stories. He was a bit
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  Speaker 1: of a sensationalist journalist, and he thought poultergeists or as
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  Speaker 1: he said, mischievous entities. He dabbled with it. He had
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  Speaker 1: great fun with it, and he would spend sixteen years
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  Speaker 1: in the space of two books documenting Borley Rectory. And
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  Speaker 1: he came at the request of the Smiths, who had
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  Speaker 1: gone to a London newspaper and said, you know there's
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  Speaker 1: some crazy stuff going out of the rectory, please come
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  Speaker 1: help us. Including the wife of Reverend Smith found a
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  Speaker 1: woman's skull in a cabinet. They had a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: bells ringing when all the strings have been cut. There
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  Speaker 1: were lights and windows, there was a carriage, and my
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  Speaker 1: favorite part is when a ghost whispered to Reverend Smith, don't, Carlos,
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  Speaker 1: don't as he was walking into the chapel. They also
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  Speaker 1: saw a stranger in the top hat. And when Harry
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  Speaker 1: Price came in June of nine nine, he called the
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  Speaker 1: day sixteen hours of thrills. That was a direct quote.
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  Speaker 1: Key started shooting out of locks. There were bells, there
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  Speaker 1: were rocks everywhere. There are a bunch of wrappings. Things
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  Speaker 1: markedly increased when Price came on the scene. He stirred
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  Speaker 1: up the polter geists for sure. And he arrived on
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  Speaker 1: the scene with his uh now patented ghost hunter's kit,
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  Speaker 1: a tape measure, a camera, a fingerprinting kit, portable phones.
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  Speaker 1: He was there to call the bluffs and he was
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  Speaker 1: convinced that these things weren't being faked. The Smith's actually
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  Speaker 1: moved out, they'd had enough of all this ghost business
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  Speaker 1: in their rectory, and Reverend Lionel Foister and his wife
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  Speaker 1: Mary Anne and their daughter Adelaide moved in. And for me,
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  Speaker 1: this is where the story gets a little bit creepy
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  Speaker 1: because of the violence inflicted on poor Marianne. These events
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  Speaker 1: went on between nineteen thirty and nineteen thirty five, and
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  Speaker 1: it seemed that a polter geist had definitely taken over
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  Speaker 1: the rectory. The foisters had water poured on them while
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  Speaker 1: they slept. Lionel was whacked in the head with a
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  Speaker 1: hair brush. There were mysterious fires, there were bottles that shattered,
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  Speaker 1: Marianne was actually throw own from her bed at one
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  Speaker 1: point and almost suffocated by a mattress, and strange riding
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  Speaker 1: began appearing on the walls, things that said Marianne, please
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  Speaker 1: get help, Marianne, please lighten mass prayers. It seemed pretty
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  Speaker 1: obvious that someone was trying to communicate with her, and
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  Speaker 1: her attempts to reciprocate the communication didn't work. But it's
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  Speaker 1: odd to me that someone who the spirits deemed sympathetic
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  Speaker 1: to their plight would be targeted by such violence. And
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  Speaker 1: later the violence was even inflicted on the voyster's child.
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  Speaker 1: So the vosters had the house exercised, and for a
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  Speaker 1: while it worked, but eventually it seemed like that just
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  Speaker 1: transferred the phenomena to new places and new things. They
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  Speaker 1: started hearing strange music coming from the chapel, they saw communion,
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  Speaker 1: wine turned to ink. My favorite part is in Harry
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  Speaker 1: Price's notes when he said that they were odors found
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  Speaker 1: pleasant and unpleasant. Well, that's never good. I mean, you
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  Speaker 1: can get suffocated with the matters, but when stuff starts
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  Speaker 1: smelling bad, it's time together smelling good. So, whether it
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  Speaker 1: was that being tossed from one's bed or the awful
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  Speaker 1: smells permitting the air, the Foister's had enough and the
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  Speaker 1: house went unoccupied until nine when Harry Price moved in
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  Speaker 1: and he advertised in the local newspaper for help conducting
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  Speaker 1: the study that he wished to undertake. And I have
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  Speaker 1: a copy of the advertisement and I actually have to
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  Speaker 1: read it to you because it just it tickled me
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  Speaker 1: and Katie to death. Really, here we go, Haunted House colon.
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  Speaker 1: Responsible persons of leisure and intelligence, intrepid, critical and unbiased
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  Speaker 1: are invited to join Rota of Observers and the Year's
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  Speaker 1: Night and Day Investigation of alleged Haunted House and home Counties.
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  Speaker 1: Printed instructions supplied, scientific training or ability to operate simple instruments,
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  Speaker 1: an advantage house situated and lonely hamlet so own car
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  Speaker 1: is essential, right box h period nine eight nine, The
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  Speaker 1: Times Easy four And we checked Craigslist for something similarly
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  Speaker 1: enticing today and could not find anything that was quite
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  Speaker 1: good enough. But we found one in Atlanta. But there's
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  Speaker 1: no compensation. If I'm going to live with the ghosties,
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  Speaker 1: I want to be paid. One my favorite part was
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  Speaker 1: said demon demonic hauntings, etcetera, etcetera. It doesn't get better
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  Speaker 1: than that. But we digress back to Harry Price. So
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  Speaker 1: he moved in NY seven and he got so many
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  Speaker 1: responses to his advertisement he couldn't take them all, and
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  Speaker 1: he thought a lot of them were phonies or unsuitable
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  Speaker 1: was his word. But he ended up choosing about forty
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  Speaker 1: eight people to come live with him. And my favorite
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  Speaker 1: part is where they all get out their version of
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  Speaker 1: a Wuiji board called a planchette and try to channel
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  Speaker 1: the spirits, at which point a nun named Marie Layer
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  Speaker 1: speaks to them and says that she left the convent
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  Speaker 1: to marry a man named Henry Waldgrave, and her husband
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  Speaker 1: strangled her and buried her remains in the cellar. The
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  Speaker 1: spousal abuse re alluded to earlier. He was from a
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  Speaker 1: very wealthy family and the house was on the site
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  Speaker 1: where the Boily Rectory now stood. A later seance actually
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  Speaker 1: had the woman not as Marie Lair, but as Arabella
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  Speaker 1: Walda Grave, a Stewart spy and the wife of Henry
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  Speaker 1: Walda Grave. But perhaps the biggest cue, if one could
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  Speaker 1: call it, that was the seance that revealed the house
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  Speaker 1: would burn to the ground and evidence of the nun's
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  Speaker 1: existence would be revealed. And so, needless to say, everyone
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  Speaker 1: was waiting for the big fire to get started, but
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  Speaker 1: that didn't happen until eleven months later, and that was
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  Speaker 1: when Captain W. H. Gregson had assumed ownership of the house.
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  Speaker 1: He was unpacking the books for his library. An oil
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  Speaker 1: lamp turned over and the fire started and burned the house.
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  Speaker 1: And right before that one of my other favorite stories
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  Speaker 1: as a man named W. J. Fithian, a different reverend
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  Speaker 1: who had also communicated with the spirits, and he told
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  Speaker 1: Harry Price where to dig in the cellar to find
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  Speaker 1: the bones of Arabella Waldgrave or Murray Lair. And they
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  Speaker 1: did go to the cellar and dug up part of
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  Speaker 1: a skull and a jaw bone, along with some holy
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  Speaker 1: medals of Catherine Laboret and Saint Ignatius, And this was
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  Speaker 1: after the house had burned in Ninetree and Price thought
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  Speaker 1: he could put the spirits to rest by giving them
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  Speaker 1: what he called a proper Christian burial. Didn't work, supposedly,
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  Speaker 1: not supposedly. Even today, there is still supernatural phenomena observed
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  Speaker 1: in the churchyard near where the Boily Rectory used to stand.
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  Speaker 1: And even when the house was being demolished, Life photographers
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  Speaker 1: from Life magazine were there to capture what was happening.
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  Speaker 1: And there's a strange photograph that exists with a spectral brick,
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  Speaker 1: and people wonder if it's one of the spirits from
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  Speaker 1: the Boily Rectory raising the brick and the background to
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  Speaker 1: signify we're still here, or if it was a prank
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  Speaker 1: pulled by a worker who threw it just as the
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  Speaker 1: camera flash was going off to give the illusion of
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  Speaker 1: their being a ghost, or simply just to play it
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  Speaker 1: nown at the rubble. And that's the question still about
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  Speaker 1: whether these things were real or faked. People are pretty
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  Speaker 1: sure that the notes that Marianne Foyster found are made up.
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  Speaker 1: They took it to a graphologist and he said basically
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  Speaker 1: that they were definitely Marianne's hand, but some of the
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  Speaker 1: other parts of it can't be explained, and while the
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  Speaker 1: Society for Psychical Research does say that most of it
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  Speaker 1: is probably exaggerated by our dear illusionist um Harry Price,
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  Speaker 1: some of it is still up in the air. And
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  Speaker 1: if you don't believe in the ghost story aspect of
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  Speaker 1: the history of the Boily Rectory, you can at least
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  Speaker 1: recognize that this is definitely a point at it's paranormal
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  Speaker 1: investigators started to gain some clout and people start to
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  Speaker 1: take what they say, if not seriously, at least give
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  Speaker 1: some credent to it. And as a matter of fact,
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  Speaker 1: Harry Price broadcasted on radio one of the first paranormal investigations.
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  Speaker 1: And just think today about all the different TV networks
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  Speaker 1: and movies there are about paranormal investigators. You know, it
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  Speaker 1: is a part of our media today. It's a part
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  Speaker 1: of popular culture and some people buy into it and
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  Speaker 1: some don't. So thanks to Harry Price. Thanks Harry Price.
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  Speaker 1: And if you want to learn more about different parts
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  Speaker 1: of England and other historical ghosts and spoops, you can
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  Speaker 1: read about it on our website at how stuff Works
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: because it How stuff Works dot Com and be sure
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: to check out the stuff you missed in History Glass
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: blog on the How Stuff Works dot com to home
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