If you've already taken the picture path tour from the road to the kitchen then click here to materialize in the kitchen (when at Borley Rectory do as the ghosts do).

We're going to walk up to the Rectory in a short while but before we do so I have a few things for you to consider. Ghosts were sighted outside the Rectory as well as inside and some of you might have some reservations about getting too close to places a ghosts was spotted. And while I'm getting better at remembering where ghosts were seen at, if I forget to warn you about a particular spot that you're alreading standing at, well...sorry.

As a matter of fact, I don't believe there is any "neutral" way to approach the Rectory. Indeed, since we're going to walk between the two posts ahead of us which was the Rectory's east gate I must tell you that the ghost nun was occasionally seen near one of the posts, seemingly leaning on it as if withdrawn and sad. I don't remember which specific post, if any, was mentioned. Although logic would dictate that it would be safest to simply walk down the middle of the posts there is something else you should know. Reverend Smith and his wife reported that one evening a phantom coach came up the road and stopped right between the posts. The coach's lanterns were even glowing. But we'll deal with this. For right now let's talk about today's project.

With respect to witness accounts of stones, bottles and other objects being thrown by unseen hands in the Rectory, one testimony stands out. This testimony came from Edwin Whitehouse who lived with his aunt and uncle a little ways down the road from the Rectory. Edwin and Marianne Foyster who lived in the Rectory, along with the maid and the Foyster's child Adelaide were in the kitchen. Marianne was cooking as the maid was preoccupied with cleaning up the pieces of a broken bottle. The bottle had been thrown into the kitchen from an unknown source. Interestingly, the bottle caused no great anxiety because this small group of regulars at the Rectory was used to this kind of stuff happening at the Rectory anyway. Let's go into the Rectory and join our friends in the kitchen so you can better visualize one bottle that didn't act normally.

(If you don't want to walk from the road to the kitchen to get a better idea of where the kitchen is at, the click here to go directly to the kitchen.)

Let's go to the main entry of the Rectory. The entry is at the tower-like structure to the right of the trunk of the big tree in the middle of the above picture. We'll now going proceed through the gate and on up the drive. Also, regardless that this little walk is going to take us uphill a bit let's proceed quickly through the gate and follow the drive up to the corner of the Rectory. We'll stop just before we get to the end of the hedge that follows the drive to the corner of the Rectory.

There, you can see the outline of the dining room window more clearly in the bottom left area of the picture. It is a little bit beyond the end of the hedge in the bottom left foreground. Note that the tower-like structure to the right of the window contains the Rectory's front door. We are now going to make our way to the front door which is the door with the arch that you see in the tower-like structure.

As we approach the front door we can't help but notice the detail of the bricked up window on our left. That's not a ghost in front of the bricked up window. That's Capt. Gregson. He was the first private owner of the Rectory after Borley parish decided the Rectory was too much of a headache. The Rectory was damaged by fire, however, before he moved in and he consequently never moved in.

I guess I should warn you that as we enter the front door that we'll be walking right through the place where a member of the chuch choir saw a robed figure. This choir member was on his way to the front door to meet with Reverend Harry Bull when he saw this figure. This choir member was under the impression that this figure Reverend Bull had a guest and so decided to try to meet with Reverend Bull at a later time. Upon hearing about this robed figure the Reverend simply remarked that he had not had any visitors but that the ghost nun was indeed rather active that night!

(As we enter the front door do you notice anything right off hand? Indeed, it seems abruptly cool inside the Rectory, doesn't it? Indeed, it's been noted that regardless of the Rectory's 14 fireplaces which include one stove, the Rectory always seemed a bit cool. You might want to button your sweaters.)

As we go through the front door we immediately go through another door as we pass through the tower-like structure. Beyond this second door is a long entry hall that has no doors or openings except on the far end.

As we reach the first door in the entry hall which is to our left and which opens into the far corner of the dining room, note how every step you make echoes in this hall. I know that the ghost hunters who inspected the Rectory were careful to try to detect if some practical joker was discretely entering or leaving the Rectory. However, scratch the entry hall as a quiet way to enter or leave the Rectory. Now that we've reached the doors at the far end of the entry hall, let's stop and try to relax.

Note that we've almost walked half way through the Rectory before really seeing anything! Indeed, we already see light coming into the other side of the Rectory from the far end of this "tunnel." In fact, to the right is the kitchen hall (not visible) that ran part way along the back of the servant's wing. The first door on the left in the kitchen hall actually opens into the courtyard. This door is in the same wall as the arched opening in front of us. So we've nearly walked from one side of the servant's wing to the other, the servants wing being to our right.

From where we're standing we can just barely see the molding around the dining room door which is a little ways inside the left edge of the picture. To right of the molding through the arched opening we notice a room ahead of us which is actually the main stairwell. Beyond the left edge of this arched opening on the far side of the stairwell is a door that opens into a large, now empty room. This was the drawing room which was about the same size as the dining room. To the right of the drawing room door we see another arched opening. Through this opening we see another hall with some doors. The door at the end of the hall obviously leads outside. To the right of that door are another pair of doors. These are storage closets.

Normally, the butler would have taken our coats and put them into a large, walk-in closet around the corner to our right (not visible in the above picture). And certainly Reverend Bull would have stepped out from around any of the number of corners we see to greet us; he may have escorted us inside too. We'd ulimately be ushered into the dining room to our left. But we're going to be late for lunch if we don't start heading for the kitchen.

Let's have a look down the hallway that leads to the kitchen. The picture was actually taken from inside the dining room. Although you really need to know the layout of the Rectory to identify the part of this picture that was the kitchen, if you can distinguish the stairwell at the end of the hall then the kitchen is the brightly lit (actually sunlight coming through the large kitchen window that is out of view to the left) area in front of the stairs. As we go down the kitchen hall the rooms to the right are the butler's pantry, the kitchen hall stairwell, the only stairwell that went all the way from the cellar to the attic, and the sewing room, originally the servants room. Note that on the top left wall right before we enter the kitchen is the row of servant's bells, appropriately mounted outside the servant's room. There is also a door to the left before we pass the servants bells. This door opens outside to the courtyard.

We are now standing in the kitchen. Directly in front of us we see the kitchen hall that we just passed through. In front of us to our right is the kitchen window, the only window in the kitchen and probably the largest window in the Rectory. This window originally looked across both the courtyard and a lawn into a wooded area with the fields beyond that. But this view was lost when the addition was build on the other side of the courtyard. Behind us is the door to the larder. (Note that the entire kitchen consisted of three rooms.)

Across the room to our left (not visible) was the fireplace where food was cooked.

Given how the kitchen window towers above the door, think of how high the ceiling must have been! And this wing of the Rectory was shorter than the wing that the Bulls lived in. Yet, Edwin Whitehouse observed a bottle hover near the ceiling of this kitchen!

Also in this room the kitchen table was discovered to have been turned over on one occasion. Not only was the kitchen table turn over but some of the contents of the store cupboard (eg., flour, sugar) had been thrown on the floor in a path that led over the inverted table and out this door into the kitchen hall.

Regarding the hovering bottle, I now believe the ghost nun was using the bottle to represent herself. The fact that the bottle hovered and then fell straight to the floor was meant to depict her fal into the well. The bottle broke when in hit the stone floor of the kitchen, the shattering glass meant to depict the nun splashing into water at the bottom of the well just as the nun had possibly been breaking the dining room window to suggest her fall into the well.

Also, the inverted table was also meant to charade the nun's fall into the well. Just as the shattering bottle was meant to depict the nun's fall into water, the inverted legs of the table were meant to suggest splashing water. So the ghost nun used wood as well as glass to imply splashing water.

Also, it was noted that at one time the contents of the store cupboard had been thrown on the kitchen floor in a path that went over the inverted table and out the door. Given that flower and sugar were among the things that had been spilt on the floor, imagine the ghost nun trying to tell us that she had fallen into an underground stream at the bottom of the well, the four and the sugar suggesting the white water of a flowing stream, appropriately complementing the "splashing water" of the inverted table. In fact...

Do you see the yellow plastic road cone is this picture from the Alexander MacDonald visit to Borley? It's on the right side of the drive further towards the building in the background. That cone was placed there because the drive is a bit unstable at this point. The residents of Borley Village will tell you that the road is unstable because of an underground stream. Consider that this cone would probably have been roughly 15-20 feet almost straight out the Rectory's kitchen window! Not only that but the abandoned is probably somewhere under the drive closer to the camera!