Despite all that has been written about Borley at the time of the hauntings, it was not a particularly isolated community, and never has been. There was a fine railway that was able to take you to the centre of London in a couple of hours, and the main route between London and East Anglia lay at the bottom of the valley. The road through the village was well-used as a route to the Halstead road that avoided Sudbury, and the footpaths around Borley were well-trodden by folk travelling between Long Melford and Bulmer.
Long Melford, the nearest town, had far more pubs and hotels than could support the local trade. Most of their business was with travellers. Not only did these arrive in Motorcars, but also by train, on horseback or foot. Ernest Ambrose (1878-1972) who lived in Long Melford all his life, wrote his memoirs as "Melford Memories", and records the huge number of people who travelled on the road on foot, in his youth. There were the tradesmen such as joiners and plasterers who travelled from job to job, the gypsies, the travellers (itinerant farm-workers), the traders and showmen, as well as the travelling salesmen and tourists. Long Melford grew prosperous from the trade that the travellers on the road brought to the town. Some of these travellers were still around when I first moved to East Anglia, though mostly motorised or on bicycle, and the traditional itinerant farm working families are still to be seen around.
It was the knife-sharpener and his wife who stuck in my mind. It was as if they had suddenly been propelled into post-war England from a time-machine. Every summer they would appear and offer to sharpen knives and scissors. They dressed in black, the custom for the travelling folk who did seasonal work on the farms, such as strawberry-picking and hoeing sugar-beet. Their clothing was neat, and almost looked like Sunday best. Their skin was dark bronze and wrinkled from the sun. They had pushbikes. Even though we were perfectly capable of sharpening our own knives, we always found a few for these old folk. I would have liked to merely press money into their hand for nothing but they were fiercely proud. So we gave them any old knives we could find and they set to work. The old 'bor didn't say much, but at the sight of knives being borne toward him by his wife, he would put the bike on a stand and engage the sharpening stone that was mounted on the front of the bike taking power via a band from the pedals. He would pedal away, with the bike remaining stationery whilst the stone whirred round and sparks would fly out over the front wheel.
They came no more after around 1975. I hope they settled down into a quiet and restful old age somewhere in high Suffolk, though they then seemed as old as the land around them. The itinerant life must have been very hard, and they, like their predecessors, had to rely on whatever shelter they could find at night, and often slept under hedges by the side of the road in summer. It would be nice to think that they put away the pushbikes for the last time and slept in a feather bed for the rest of their lives. Certainly, life was always hard for the itinerant knife-sharpeners
Inquest at Hadleigh on Elizabeth Piggot a travelling knife grinder's wife who died in her tent, her one dwelling place for 40 years.
Bury and Norwich Post November 2nd 1841.
Working in a field on a hot summers day was not a pleasant task. Hoeing Beet meant having to stoop slightly, and one had to watch the blade closely to make sure that the weeds rather than the beet got hoed. To guard against the sun, the women used to wear large black scarves around their head, rather like one sees in Hollywood pirate films, but larger, making a team of hoers look for all the world like nuns at a distance. The Knife-sharpening lady was no exception, dressed all in black, with hair covered, with her inscrutable sad smile.
At the time of the famous sighting of the nun at Borley Rectory on 28th July 1900, the Knife-sharpeners would hardly have been born, but they were the last of a trade that was once common, and there were many other itinerant workers who led similar lives. The Melford Road, which was part of the great highway between London and east anglia, could be seen from the rectory snaking along the side of the Stour Valley. The Borley road, with its wide verges and thick hedges, was once a popular stopping place for travellers. For instance, the local paper records ...
A gang of 12 vagabonds consisting of 3 males and 9 females are strolling about the county as Gypsies, they have been apprehended at Borley near Sudbury, the head of this gang is Joseph and Hannah Lovel,the former at the late Sessions at Chelmsford were adjudged incorrigible rogues and vagrants and were committed to the house of correction at Chelmsford for 6 months.
Bury Post, February 22nd 1815.
Could the Bull girls have mistaken a traveller for a nun? It was twilight, an hour or more after sunset, at about 9pm (10pm in modern UK 'Summer Time') when they saw the figure. Just the time when the travelling folk would seek a quiet spot to settle down for the night.
"She could only see a woman bent over in a flowing black robe such as nuns wear. She could not see the face, not whether she wore anything white, nor whether she carried a rosary, or wore a crucifix or medal. In November 1900, when she saw the nun again, the figure was bowed right over and no face visible."
(Miss Ethel Bull interviewed by Mr W. H. Salter, Rev S Austin and Mollie Goldney)
"It was still quite light as they entered the drive gate and started toward the house, then at the same time they said, they all saw the figure of a nun dressed all in black with bowed head, her hands clasped as though in prayer."
(Peter Underwood, Borley Postscript p133)
A few months later, the figure in black was seen again by Ethel Bull.
"..this time in the company of the Rectory cook, apparently leaning over a gate and, interestingly enough, a cousin, staying at the house at the time, also saw the same figure in the same place"
(Peter Underwood, ibid
It has always puzzled me that the Bulls should be so quick to ascribe a supernatural cause to seeing trespassers in the garden, since it actually went all the way along the road, and the vegetable gardens and orchards would have been a great temptation for travelling folk.
The garden and road was once part of a mediaeval drift way, which had two spurs, one to the Stour valley and one to the meadowland along the Belchamps Brook. Originally, it would have allowed the driving of cattle and sheep between the high common land around Borley and Borley green, and this fertile meadowland. The Rectory garden occupies what was once common land. The 'Nun's walk' actually runs along the edge of the drift road and would have been the short-cut route taken by anyone going from Rodbridge or the Watermill, over the brook, to Bulmer.
Of course, it is idle speculation to wonder if the Bull girls actually saw one of the forebears of the itinerant trades people I knew, but less idle than it would be to ascribe it to a ghost.