WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Most Haunted House in England 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:07.520 Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff, the very special 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:15.200 Halloween edition of Short Stuff. Chuck, what about the Borily Rectory? 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:17.680 And I have to say this one's good, but I 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.319 think it still doesn't hold the candle to the one 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:24.120 you put together that kicked off our Halloween content. But 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.120 which is the most sterile way of putting it? Um, 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:31.319 the two parter of jack O Lanard's and Sleepy Haller. 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.240 It was like we even got a message from Dave 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:36.839 the producer saying like this is the greatest thing I've 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:38.920 ever heard in my life. I'm paraphrasing, but that was 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:43.320 basically it. Well, thank you, Dave. Yeah, so this is 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.960 I like this one too though, because this is about um, 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:50.800 the most haunted house in England. Yeah, which, uh, A 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.320 lot of people automatically know what we're talking about just 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:57.040 hearing that phrase Boriley Rectory, which a rectory, by the way, 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.160 is a place where a pastor lives. Leave for the 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:05.039 Anglican Church, maybe for just Protestantism in general, but you know, 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:07.360 pastors are allowed to marry and they have a family, 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:09.679 so you gotta put them somewhere. You can't just make 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.160 them sleep under the pews in the church. So they 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.200 get their own house, and that's called the rectory. And 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.240 it just so happened that the one in Boordly, which 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:19.240 is this little village an hour and a half northeast 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.920 of London that no one would have ever heard about 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.640 had it not been for the rectory, there was a 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.720 very very haunted place, that's right. And by the way, 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:30.840 do you know what we call those in the Baptist 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:35.000 church at my church? What the preacher's house the sinbox? No, 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.959 we called it that crappy little house next to the church. No, 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:45.760 that's what they get dedicating themselves. So the rectory was 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:48.200 built in the eighteen eighties. Uh. It burned down in 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.280 the nineteen thirties. But that property itself has a long 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.040 history of haunting, supposedly going way way back to the 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:01.200 thirteen sixties when there was a monastery there and allegedly 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.160 a headless monk would roam the fields and a nun 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:06.800 i would haunt the place who had been walled up 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.760 alive inside the monastery walls. Yeah, there was another nune 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.280 too that would have come later. Who was I guess 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.880 who ran away from the nunnery and tried to join 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.560 the Waldgrave family who owned this property and instead was 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:23.960 like strangled and buried in a cellar there. So you've 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.000 got at least three good ghosts wandering around the site 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.240 that the Reverend Bull, the first Reverend Bull and his 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.400 family come along in the eighteen sixties and say this 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:34.920 will be a fine place to build our rectory. And 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.040 of course the townspeople were like, this is a really 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:39.480 bad idea, but we're just gonna sit back and not 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.359 say a word, because you know, we really could use 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.480 them the addition to our tax base here at the town. 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.000 And then they thought it through a little further and like, darn, 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:54.320 it is that true in England too. I don't know. 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:58.240 It's a great American joke though. Uh. They would hear 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:02.240 certain things in the night, like servants, bells, ringing, keys 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.880 flying out of the locks. Uh, always a little tinkling 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:10.000 of the keyboard with no hands nearby. Yeah, phantoms. There 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.959 was a phantom stage coach that supposedly used to arrive. 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:15.960 And the townspeople were like, of course this is a 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.520 really haunted site. It makes sense that this house would 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:23.079 be haunted too. Um. And so the rectory itself is 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:25.760 built in eighteen sixty two, and within a year there 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.880 were reported sightings. Um, but it wasn't until the nineteen 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.480 thirties and over time like between it. It wasn't like 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.640 this just started in eighteen sixty two and then stopped 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.520 in the nineteen thirties. Like every family that lived there 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.760 reported something, some more than others. In some cases the 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.840 family there was just clearly afflicted by a terrible poultry 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.800 geist or horrible ghost activity, just constant stuff. Others were 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.240 not quite as bad. But um, it was every family 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.560 that lived there reported something, and so the house itself 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:58.840 got a reputation even before it was known as the 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.360 most haunted house in England. That's right, And you know 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.600 why all this stuff is happening. The old German phrase 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:11.560 geist is kind of geist pretty great, you know. So 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.560 Poulter means loud. Isn't that what Poulter guist means loud? 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:17.480 I don't know. Is that what it was. I'm pretty 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:21.080 sure I should know that with my vast German knowledge base, 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.520 but I don't remember. But I think another another translation 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:32.039 is Toby Hooper didn't actually direct this, it's the other translation. 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.000 Do you think it was Spielberg gut pulling the strings? Yeah? 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:41.200 Uh yeah, yeah, don't get me started. Uh so, yeah, 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.360 the nineteen thirties, I believe. In nineteen nine, the Daily 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.200 Mail sent Harry price who was sort of the foremost 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:52.200 paranormal investigator of the day. He worked with a Society 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.039 for Um Psychical Research, and he was like Houdini and 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:00.400 that he was a debunker of mediums of fraudulent meat ums. 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.160 But he was also sort of a probably a bit 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.880 of a self promoter and below hard. And the people 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.320 at the spr were like, I don't like you so much, 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:11.400 and he went, well, I don't like you either. I'm 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.640 gonna go find my own jam and he founded the 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:19.279 National Laboratory of I said physical before Josh corrected me, 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.080 psychical research. Yeah, it'll trip you up for sure. I 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.040 was raised on this stuff, Like I used to want 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.440 to go to Duke and study parapsychology when I was 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.400 a kid. Do that in retirement one day, my friend, 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.400 maybe I will one day. I don't think they have 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.400 that that research anymore. But anyway, um, like Mr Clark, 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:40.040 we discontinued that program, Well could you just start it 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.280 up again? So Harry pricey was because he was such 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.000 a good self promoter. He wrote a lot of books 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.840 and he wrote his books to be easily consumed by 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.200 the public, like they were very readable. I saw um. 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.680 And so he became a very very well known debunker 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:59.800 of mediums and and well known skeptic. So when he 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.320 went to inspect Borley Rectory himself at the behest of 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.080 the Daily Mail, and he came out of there and said, yeah, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:09.239 this actually checks out. This place is a haunted house. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.040 People definitely took notice, like he lent his credibility to it, 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.280 and not because he was a fraud or sham necessarily, 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:18.880 Like he seemed to have really been convinced, at least 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:22.240 at first maybe always all right, I think it's a 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.800 good spot for a break, and uh, we'll talk a 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:59.400 little bit more about this rectory right after this. So 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:01.880 one entry thing thing that happened at the Boorly Rectory 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.120 was it burned down. Uh this is a nineteen thirty 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:10.600 nine and you know, if you believe the story, then 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.000 it seems very suspicious. But the owner at the time, 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.920 Mr William Gregson, said that he saw with his own 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.040 eyeballs a stack of books that were sitting there on 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.720 a shelf flew off on their own and ended up 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.440 knocking over a lamp a paraffin wick lamp and that 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.080 ended up burning the house down. Yes, and fortunately that 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.880 happened after Harry Price had spent the previous year there, 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:40.080 so he leased the place in nine Yeah, he went 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.640 and lived there for a year with forty eight assistants 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.200 that he hired, um, so that they could all work 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:49.520 basically around the clock studying and recording all the ghostly 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:51.840 phenomenon that was there. And he made his career like 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.880 even further. This cemented Harry Price and the Annals of 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:59.480 paras Psychology where his studies on Borly Rectory, and he 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.880 published two books, um, the most Haunted House in England, 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.960 which coined that phrase I believe, I don't think he 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.240 used it before then um, and cemented in everyone's mind like, yeah, 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.720 Borily Rectory is proof positive there haunted houses. And then 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.080 after the fire I believe he wrote a second book 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:18.800 of follow up book called The End of Borrey Rectory. 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.440 And so for years until Price's death in a few 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:27.160 years beyond, Uh, anybody who believed in the world basically 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:31.480 in ghosts had probably heard of Borily Rectory and considered 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.320 it as like I was saying, proof that haunted houses 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.800 can exist because of the work of Harry Price, but 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.600 then his work was kind of undone later on, right, Yeah, 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.520 so his old I don't know about enemies, but it's 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.440 at least his rivals. Yeah. Friend of me is at 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:51.600 the Society for uh Psychical Research, said, you know what, 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.199 this guy is dead. Uh he was a bit of 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.960 a jerk to us, and so let's go undo the 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:02.320 work that he did. Let's debunk the debunker. Yeah. So 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.959 they like they explained, they gave alternative explanations rather than 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:07.680 ghosts for some of this stuff. But the thing that 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:10.920 really kind of like pull the pull the wool down 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.440 or the curtain down on the whole thing was apparently 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:18.520 these guys found in Harry Price's unpublished notes UM he 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.560 implicated a woman named Mary Ann Foyster who was the 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.199 Reverend Foyster's wife who lived there for several years, and 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.240 she apparently was at the center of carrying out a 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.240 lot of these ghost hoaxes. And Harry Price knew it too, 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:35.360 So that was a really he definitely buried it. And 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.080 also the SPR researchers suggested, I don't know where they 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.280 found this out, but they suggested that Harry Price was 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:45.600 also not um not shy to do things like throw 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.560 pebbles in a dark and seance room to just scare 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:50.480 people and make noise and just kind of add to 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.040 the whole thing. So the book really kind of cut 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:56.199 the legs out from under the idea that Harry Price 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:59.640 had discovered a real haunted house. Not entirely. There's plenty 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.280 of people who still believed, but it definitely put a 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.920 dent in the whole thing. Then there was another book. 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:06.600 This one came out in two thousand and this was 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.560 a memoir by a man named I don't know if 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.920 it's Louis or Louis Marling, who said, you know what, 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.160 I lived at that home a couple of times. I 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:17.040 lived with the family of Reverend Henry Bull in the 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:21.679 nineteen tens and nineteen twenties, and then uh and with 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.280 Bull in the tens and twenties, then the Foisters that 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.040 Foister Mrs Foister in the nineteen thirties. And he said, 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.120 I worked with both of these families, and we did 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:33.120 a bunch of these hoaxes. We would tickle the piano 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.240 strings behind a hole in the wall and stuff like that, 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:41.040 and it was kind of really all us. But here's 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:48.000 a twist of that story, A twist he said he 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:52.920 could explain everything save one that in Easter Nive, he 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.480 and the aforementioned Marianne Foister and some other folks attended 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.880 a seance there and it went to an underground seller 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.320 about midnight. Sat there in the dark, in the quiet, 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.280 and someone gave a little nervous cough, as if they 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:08.760 were about to speak, and all of a sudden, all 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.200 those kitchen bells start clinging together at once, which is 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.760 supposedly impossible to ring all those things at once, and 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:19.760 supposedly no one else was there. Yeah, so Mrs Foyster 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.560 was there at the time too, And um, Louis Maryland 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.440 suggests like they looked at each other, like, what's really 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:32.719 going on? These hoaxters were suddenly or overcome with ghostly phenomenon. Right, 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:41.520 But then, chuck, there's another twist. That's right. It turns 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.520 out that the Louis Maryland, who wrote this book in 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:49.439 two thousand um was researched themselves and found that there 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:51.800 was nobody by the name of Lewis Maryland who has 0:11:51.920 --> 0:12:01.720 ever recorded living at Borley Rectory, let alone twice. Wow. Yeah, 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.200 which I mean technically could just mean that that book 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.240 is a work of fiction or whatever. But still it's 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:11.040 a great extra twist, don't you think. Sure you thought 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:13.679 the ghost twist was it? And then bam, bam bam, 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.520 there's like the anonymous book twist. And then m night 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.920 Chamelain delivers flowers to the front doors, and that's very nice. 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.240 You got anything else? I got nothing else? Well, everyone, 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.480 thank you for joining us on the scariest short stuff 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.960 of the year, the short Stuff on Borderley Rectory, which 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:38.280 is now out. Stuff you Should Know is a production 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.199 of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.440 visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:45.880 you listen to your favorite shows.