Holy Ground

England is widely known as a land haunted by spirits, and the Borley Rectory claims to be the most haunted place in England.The rectory was built in 1863 next to the Borley Church as a home for Reverend Henry Bull. After its construction it became the site of intense poltergeist activity, such as spontaneous displacement of objects,strange odors,cold spots,the sound of galloping horses and ghostly apparitions.The rectory was destroyed by fire in 1939 but photos of the ruins still contained odd images and unexplained elements.Harry Price got involved in the case after a newspaper carried a story about a phantom nun at the house.Price was asked by the paper to investigate and he was told about various types of phenomena that had been reported there.Local legend had it that a monastery had once been located on the site and that a 13th century monk and a beautiful young novice were killed.The monk was hanged and his future bride was bricked up alive within the walls of her convent.Until that point, the ghosts had been relatively peaceful,but all that changed in October 1930 when Bull's successor,Rev. Guy Smith was replaced by Reverend Lionel Foyster and his wife, Marianne.Their time in the house would see a marked increase in the paranormal activity.People were locked out of rooms, household items vanished,windows were broken,furniture was moved,odd sounds were heard and much more.However,the worst of the incidents seemed to involve Mrs.Foyster,as she was thrown from her bed at night,slapped by invisible hands,forced to dodge heavy objects which flew at her day and night and was once almost suffocated with a mattress.Soon after,there began to appear a series of scrawled massages on the walls of the house,written by an unknown hand,like "Marianne,please help get" or "Marianne light mass prayers".The Foysters moved out of the house and with the place now empty, Price leased the house for an extended one year investigation.He ran an advertising in the "Times" on May 25,1937,and after choosing more than 40 people, he printed the first handbook on how to conduct a paranormal investigation.A copy was given to each investigator and it explained what to do when investigating the house,along with what equipment they would need.During a sitting with a planchette,a spirit named Marie Lairre related that she had been a nun in France but had left her convent to marry Hanry Waldegrave,a member of a wealthy family whose manor home once stood on the site of Borley Rectory.There,her husband had strangled her and had buried her remains in the cellar.In March of 1938, another spirit promised that the rectory would burn down that night and that the proof of the nun's murder would be found in the ruins.Borley Rectory did not burn that night,but exactly 11 months later,a new owner,Captain Gregson,was unpacking books in the library when an oil lamp overturned and started a fire.Price took this opportunity to excavate in the cellar of the house and discovered a few fragile bones which turned out to be that of a young women.The building itself was finally demolished in 1944.However,its legacy still continues today and it retains its reputation as one of the world's most famous haunted houses.Price wrote about Borley Rectory in two books entitled "The Most Haunted House in England" and "The End of Borley Rectory".

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