The Borley Rectory Companion: The Complete Guide to 'The Most Haunted House in England'

By Paul Adams, Peter Underwood and Eddie Brazil

Borley Rectory in Essex, built in 1862, should have been an ordinary Victorian clergyman's house. However, just a year after its construction, unexplained footsteps were heard within the house, and from 1900 until it burned down in 1939 numerous paranormal phenomena, including phantom coaches and shattering windows, were observed. In 1929 the house was investigated by the Daily Mail and paranormal researcher Harry Price, and it was he who called it 'the most haunted house in England.' Price also took out a lease of the rectory from 1937 to 1938, recruiting forty-eight 'official observers' to monitor occurences. After his death in 1948, the water was muddied by claims that Price's findings were not genuine paranormal activity, and ever since there has been a debate over what really went on at Borley Rectory. Paul Adams, Eddie Brazil and Peter Underwood here present a comprehensive guide to the history of the house and the ghostly (or not) goings-on there.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Sep 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9780750981316

Paul Adams

Paul Adams, PhD, is a Research Officer in EPSRC’s SUPERGEN Bioenergy Hub and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Bath, where he also teaches on the Energy & Environment and Integrated Environmental Management courses. He is currently working on several environmental and economic assessment and modelling research projects within the Sustainable Energy Research Team (SERT). Specifically, he is leading two work packages within the SUPERGEN Bioenergy Research hub, a research collaboration between several industrial and academic partners, assessing different bioenergy systems using life cycle assessment, and through the development of environmental/economic models.