#Borley

[maypoleman1]

27th February

The Ghost of Marie Lairre

Marie Lairre by Aiko Takada. Source: Deviant Art

Marie Lairre was a French nun who walled up in Borley in Essex after an illicit affair with a monk. The hideous nature of the young woman’s death seemed to lead to a frenetic and generations-long period of haunting. Marie was frequently seen on the streets of Borley village over the centuries until 1863, when the Reverend HD Bull built Borley Rectory and she transferred her place of residence there. She took to gazing at the vicar through an open window and Bull responded by bricking it up. This kept Marie quiet until the Rectory passed to the Reverend Bull’s son Harry, which provoked a major upping of the supernatural ante with ghostly coaches hurtling through the house and Marie herself frequently spotted replete with mournful, gaping-mouthed expression. She also became more violent, hurling a candlestick at a new rector in 1929, forcing him to flee the building.

On this day in 1939, a blaze took hold of the rectory, burning it to the ground. As the building burned, the ghostly figure of Marie could be seen at a first floor window, gazing out impassively as the flames danced around her. As revealed at a seance the previous year, the wreckage of the house enabled the discovery of Marie’s bones, which were promptly given a Christian burial. Unfortunately this did not placate wandering Marie who continues to roam the roads of Borley to this day.

[robertvorster]

Borley rectory, England

[connectparanormal]

Haunted Borley Rectory

People have been fascinated and perplexed by the claim that Borley Rectory is "the most haunted house in England" for decades. Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis Bull constructed this rectory in the Gothic style in 1862 and located it in the remote community of Borley, Essex, which became notorious for its purported paranormal activity. There is a complicated mixture of historical events, eyewitness testimonies, and sensationalized legends that have led to the legendary status of Borley Rectory as a place of hauntings. The location known as Borley Rectory has been the subject of these stories. Beginning in the latter half of the 19th century, the Bull family, who had resided there up until the year 1892, provided the first detailed accounts of the eerie story. They described a number of unexplained incidents, including ghostly apparitions, disembodied voices, and footsteps that seemed to echo through the corridors under mysterious circumstances. The story of the nun's apparition has endured and continues to enthrall people. According to local folklore, she became involved in a sorrowful romantic relationship with a monk from a nearby monastery. The monk's execution and the nun's rumored burial alive within the monastery walls marked the tragic end to their illicit love affair. Her ghost is believed to roam the grounds of Borley Rectory, searching for the person she lost her love to forever.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the paranormal activity that occurred at Borley Rectory garnered a great deal of attention. Harry Price, a renowned paranormal investigator, played a significant role in this investigation. Price's study at the rectory involved numerous visits and extensive documentation of his discoveries. He then published these findings in publications that caught the imagination of the general audience. He described a variety of unsettling occurrences in his investigations, including the appearance of ghostly figures, objects moving on their own, and mysterious messages allegedly painted on the walls by spirit hands. The dramatic reports firmly established Borley Rectory's reputation as a haunted spot. On the other hand, critics have consistently cast doubt on the veracity of these assertions over the course of time. There are many who believe that a significant number of the tales were either grossly inflated or completely made up. Some people attribute the phenomenon to natural causes like the ancient structure's creaking and settling, or the activity of animals like mice or rats. On the other hand, not everyone agrees with this theory. Several inhabitants and guests of the rectory have publicly asserted that the events in question are hoaxes or deliberate fabrications, further complicating the tale. As an illustration, it has been proposed that some of the purportedly supernatural occurrences were manufactured for the purpose of gaining attention or financial advantage. Borley Rectory continues to be a legendary location, despite the widespread doubt. This ensures that Borley Rectory will maintain its place in the canon of paranormal legend due to the enduring fascination with the unexplained, coupled with the mysterious and tragic aspects of the stories. Fire destroyed the rectory itself in 1939, a dramatic event that some felt marked the culmination of the building's haunted history. Even in ruins, the stories of hauntings continue to pique people's interest and provoke speculation.

[dozydawn]

had to capture ben struggling over the sentence “i don’t know if a pigeon is sentient” i nearly crashed my car listening to this

[lizardsfromspace]

Hello and welcome to the new semester at the Borley College of Demonology, Parapsychology, and Entity Studies underneath Cleveland Community College. Reminder to check the updated list of entrances; the tunnel behind the LeBron James poster by the Dreams Come True Student Loan Repayment Center is no longer active, as the janitors tore it down when someone splashed Starry Zero Sugar on it

Here are some "fun" reminders 2 know as a new student at our proud college!

You may be tempted to assume all entities can simply be exorcised. First of all, Father O'Malley has retired, and we are currently waiting on the Vatican to find anyone willing to go to Cleveland (I believe they are currently asking every Catholic in Palau). Second of all, that only works on Catholic entities. Always match the entity to the expert. Pazuzu? Call the ancient civilizations department. Banshee? Talk to Erin - you can find her at Celtic dance class, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:30. Dybbuk? Go to Hillel and see who's in (our campus rabbi is currently leading an advanced clay sculpting class outside Whitefish, Montana)

Look at your fellow students. Look to your left. Look to your right. Look into your classmate's eyes. Count them. Count again. Immediately retreat and start warding just in case. Anyway, you may have heard that one out of every three students makes a mistake on their first summoning test and is "dragged screaming by demons into the depths of Hell in front of the class". This is inaccurate. They're not demons, they are chaos entities; they're not from Hell, but instead a dimension of pure chaos; and we have it on good authority some people are freaks who like that. You may have also heard that everyone dragged off into an eternity of terror in the fear dimension gets an F. This is correct.

You may also have heard that students dragged to a dimension of infinite terror have their student loans forgiven, in case they return. This is incorrect.

While we celebrate all manners of entity at Borley College, we must reiterate that at no time are current or former members of the Mormon faith allowed on campus. If you witness anything identifying itself as the "Angel Moroni", please, hit the closest red bell immediately. This will initiate a lockdown and activate the Seelenzerstörer Icon buried at a undisclosed site on campus. Please spend your remaining moments before the unmaking reflecting on all the friends you made during your exciting years at Borley College, especially the ones you made yourself!

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

The Ghosts of Borley Rectory (2021) - Colin Baker as Charles Sutton

Here are a few things I've noticed while watching this film other than my future ex-lover Colin Baker.

Wait, Julian Sands was in this. I wonder if they ever found him?

Chris Ellison could get a piece.

With those lips, David Warren could catch a dick to the face.

[cattype]

Julian Sands- the original voice of Valmont in Jackie Chan Adventures- has been missing in the San Gabriel Mountains in California since January 13, 2023. The search has been hindered by bad weather but he’s a skilled mountaineer so there’s still a chance he’s hanging in there... alone… in the freezing cold… for a month… 

The above tweet is my reaction when I got the news. I didn’t have the space to fit it in but that interest I mentioned started about a year back. Since then I’ve been entertaining myself by learning about him by listening to interviews and convention panels. And of course watching some of his movies and TV appearances.

Something I’ve observed from his filmography is career trajectory. He started his acting career thinking he would only be a stage actor but ended up stumbling into Hollywood with two Oscar movies, The Killing Fields and A Room with a View. After that he did the movie he’s best known for amongst horror fans, Warlock because he was tired of- to slightly paraphrase what he called them in one podcast- ‘insipid romantic leads that felt more and more like chocolate box commercials’ that he had been offered after the success of A Room with a View. After that he did Warlock 2: The Armageddon out of contractual obligation but turned down Warlock 3 because the script didn’t interest him.

And that line of thinking has colored much of his career choices. He didn’t chose movies based on what paid more or what would gain him more fame, he did whatever interested him. He chose characters that were fun to play, people he wanted to work with and places he wanted to go. Because of that he’s played a wide range of characters in a wide range of movies. From general crowd pleasers, to niche genre flicks, to experimental and avant-garde weirdness. He’s worked with directors like David Cronenberg, Ken Russell, Dario Argento, and Mike Figgis. 

But those choices are probably why his star has faded so much over time. If you look at his IMDB you might notice that he’s gone from being one of the biggest faces on the poster to not even having his name on it. Most insultingly, one of the posters for A Crooked House has the whole ensemble except him. I haven’t seen it since it’s not on Netflix anymore but he seems like he should be a major character. His name’s in the trailer but apparently they didn’t see his face worth squeezing onto the poster.

Even the two movies he’s best known for have fallen into obscurity. Despite being nominated for various oscars that year including best picture, I’ve only talked to one person who knew what A Room With a View was. And Warlock seems to be a B-movie amongst B-movies.

If he died of some illness and didn’t get a ton of coverage aside from a few websites, I wouldn’t have liked it but it wouldn’t have surprised me. But the fact that he went missing complicates things. I first found out about his disappearance on MSNBC and I’ve since wondered if he got that level of coverage not so much because he was a famous actor who went missing as much as he was a missing hiker who happened to be a famous actor. And I find myself wondering not only if he’s alive or dead but how he’ll be reported on when he’s found. If he’s dead and it doesn’t get at least the same amount of coverage as his disappearance I’ll be pissed. If he’s alive and it doesn’t get the same amount of coverage I’ll be even more pissed and also extremely baffled because “65 year old actor survives for a month on a snowy mountain” is great headline!

Some people say the ultimate death is when someone says your name for the last time. Whether Julian is alive or dead or found or not he deserves to be remembered. Go to his wiki or his IMDB and look up the stuff he was in. Watch A Room With a View. Watch Warlock. Watch Jackie Chan Adventures. Watch Stephen King’s Rose Red. Watch The Room (the one with Donald Pleasence, not Tommy Wiseau). Watch Hotel. Watch Naked Lunch. Watch The Medallion. Watch The Painted Bird. Watch Borley Rectory. Watch The Ghosts of Borley Rectory. Watch The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Watch Boxing Helena. Watch Timecode. Watch The Tomorrow Man. Watch Vibes. Watch A Tale of a Vampire. Watch Seneca - On the Creation of Earthquakes. Watch Arachnophobia. Watch Gothic. Watch Witch Hunt. Watch The Escape. Watch his public readings of the poetry of Percy Shelly, John Keats, and Harold Pinter. Watch anything you see that catches your fancy. There’s sure to be something there for you or maybe you’ll discover something new to you that you wouldn’t watch otherwise. 

Living people need to be remembered as much as the dead.

This stuff’s been floating in my head for the past month and I just wanted to say it. Maybe I could said it better. Maybe there’s more I could say. But this will have to do.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

[archivist-crow]

On this day:

BORLEY RECTORY

At midnight on February 27, 1939, "the Most Haunted House in England" burned itself down in an inferno of anguish after a century of ghostly existence. Captain W. H. Gregory, the owner, watched a pile of books throw itself over, breaking an oil lamp, which quickly poured its blaze throughout the Borley Rectory. Screams from the fiery, vacant house filled the night. Excavations later revealed a woman's skull and religious pendant under the foundations.

The bleak, twin-gabled Victorian mansion in Essex County was built on the site of an old Benedictine monastery, erected in 1362. Legend tells of a monk and a nun who wanted to elope, but were caught before they could. He was hung. She was bricked up alive. The Reverend Henry Bull added a wing to the existing structure in 1863. His family was plagued with ghostly activity for the next sixty years: phantom coaches, whispering voices, stomping footsteps on the stairs, bells ringing, writing on the walls, objects disappearing and reappearing, stone falls, headless specters, keys throwing themselves from locks, unexplainable cold spots, and other ghostly phenomena. One daughter's sleep was broken by a handless slap on her face. Most commonly reported was the nun, gliding along a dark path named the nun's walk. Organ music and eerie chants echoed from the nearby Borley Church.

In 1929, famous supernatural researcher Harry Price was asked by a national newspaper to investigate. Price picked forty people "of leisure and intelligence" to spend the night at the rectory. They watched objects move, saw soap sail through the air, and felt the temperature plummet. One guest was locked into the dining room by a ghost. The key was on the inside, with him. He was alone, with the ghost.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009

[4toldbygyromancy]

I think we surprised each other outside that haunted house attraction.

I don't remember who kissed who, just us holding each other's faces and smooshing noses and glasses and cheeks in an attempt to connect our lips.

[local-boob]

To a dead child: "What have they done to you? You're not there anymore. Goodbye." (closes dead child's eyes)

Harry Reed (played by Sean Harris), unsung hero of The Banishing (2020)

Note: Harry Reed's character is inspired by the real-life occultist Harry Price

[djohnhopper]

NEW BOOKS: Bit of a Borley Rectory theme going on here. Thrilled to have gotten these two titles, via a very generous Amazon voucher. Hauntings - real or fake, seem to matter little compared to the story of real life characters that got sucked into the phenomenon that was Borley Rectory.

[unreesonable]

Artwork from Hocus Pocus by Richard Wiseman, Rik Worth, Jordan Collver and Owen Watts.

[blogparanormalexpresso2stuff]

The Borley Rectory | Paranormal Deep Dive

Known as “the most haunted house in England,” Borley Rectory became infamous for its ghostly apparitions, strange lights, and mysterious writings on the walls. Built in the 19th century, the rectory's tragic history seemed to manifest in paranormal activity that spanned decades. From the spectral figure of a nun to poltergeist phenomena, Borley Rectory captured the attention of paranormal investigators worldwide.

In this episode, we examine the strange occurrences that haunted this Victorian mansion and ask whether Borley’s ghosts are still lingering.

[grazielladwan]

Harry Price

Immagine dal web Harry Price (1881-1948) è stato uno dei più celebri e controversi investigatori dell’occulto e dei fenomeni paranormali del XX secolo. Nato a Londra, si distinse per la sua passione per la scienza e il desiderio di esplorare e indagare fenomeni sovrannaturali con un approccio rigoroso e metodico, che lo rese sia una figura rispettata che contestata nel mondo dello spiritismo e…