Recreating England's most haunted house
Turn back time and visit Borley Rectory
I am delighted to say that I am going to regularly blog about magic, psychology and the paranormal! To kick things off, here is a piece about our work in ghosts and virtual reality.
I am a huge fan of 1930s paranormal researcher Harry Price. Price carried out lots of amazing investigations, including studying an alleged talking mongoose and trying to use an ancient spell to turn a goat into a Prince. However, he also investigated Borley Rectory in Essex, and crowned it the most haunted house in England. The Rectory was associated with lots of strange phenomena (including ghostly nuns, mysterious voices, and chilling apparitions), but burned down in 1939.
Working from original photographs, eyewitness descriptions and detailed floor plans, we have have recreated one of the most haunted rooms in the building using virtual reality. Now, people can step back in time, re-visit the Rectory, and see if they still have weird experiences in this creepy space.
The team consisted of University of Hertfordshire technician Alex Eckford, paranormal expert Paul Adams, and myself. The room (known as The Blue Room) happens to be almost identical in size to one of the labs in the Psychology Department, and so participants can fully immerse themselves in the space by touching the walls, sitting in chairs, etc.. We can also add virtual ghosts and other strange happenings! It will be fascinating to see how people respond to this space all these years later.
I am excited about the project and love the idea of bringing this special space back from the ashes. If you have any memories or information about Borley Rectory, or would like to get involved in the project, please get in contact.
I stayed in Long Melford in 1985, and after a couple of drinks at the Bull pub set off to the plot where the Rectory used to stand. I recall wandering along the lane, noticing a house on the right that had a window facing the lane blacked out. My companions and I all concurred that this may have some bearing upon the Rectory (we were young and impressionable) and its legend. A scared resident blocking out the view of ghostly goings on beyond, perhaps.
Anyway, as we went to return back to the village a very still summer evening suddenly broke into a noticeable strong breeze, strong enough for us to hasten our pace back to our lodgings. Later, as we checked our map, we had indeed been at the entrance of the old Rectory.
I have no idea what the events of that evening meant, but I’ve had more than a passing interest in the history of the Rectory ever since.
I love mysteries, thank you Richard! Welcome to Substack! 💖🤗