BORLEY RECTORY – THE MOST HAUNTED HOUSE IN ?

By Owen J Lewis

A SMITH SCRIPT

This script is protected by copyright laws. No performance of this script – IN ANY MEDIA – may be undertaken without payment of the appropriate fee and obtaining a licence. For further information, please contact SMITH SCRIPTS at [email protected] Borley OJL 2005©

Borley Rectory The Most Haunted House In England? By Owen J.Lewis

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Borley OJL 2005©

Borley Rectory The Most Haunted House in Britain?

Cast Annabel James: An actress Harry Price: The lecturer Henry Dawson Ellis Bull: The rector Mary Ann Bull: The rector’s wife Harry Bull: His son Ethel Bull: Henry’s daughter Freda Bull: Henry’s daughter Mabel Bull: Henry’s daughter Elsie Bull: Henry’s daughter Rev. Eric Smith: Third vicar Mabel Smith: Eric’s wife Lucie Kaye: Price’s secretary Vince Wall: A Daily Mirror reporter Lionel Foyster: Fourth rector of Borley Marianne Foyster: Lionel’s wife Sir George Whitehouse: Foyster acquaintance Lady Whitehouse: Whitehouse’s spouse Francois D’arles: The lodger Francois D’Arles Junior: D’arles’ young son Douglas Ian: Marianne’s illegitimate child Mr Warren: Marks Tey Spiritualist Circle Mrs Warren: Marks Tey Spiritualist Circle Louis Mayerling: Sceptic and hoaxer

Act one

(The year is 1947. The play is set in the style of a lecture given by Harry Price. The audience will represent his lecture audience. He is standing at a lectern, stage left in darkness. There is a Nun sitting centre stage and she is clearly distressed. In the audience unbeknown to the public is Louis Mayerling. He is to enter the auditorium with the rest of the public and remain anonymous until later. He is to have a reserved seat on the front row.

It is important that Harry Price is in darkness as the audience must focus their attention on the Nun. She is about 19 years old. She is bricked up in a tiny space. The stage is bare. There is no real record of the Nun’s name and, in fact, no real evidence of her existence so for directional purposes she shall be notated as Nun.)

Nun Oh my Lord, why have you forsaken me? Why have you left me here alone so cruelly accused and so meanly punished? Why my God, why? All I did was to love another, why can I not serve you and yet love another? Why am I to die? My Lord? You must help me see why this is to be my fate, you must help me to find an understanding before my head bows and my world becomes the darkness of death. My Lord with you I will see, with you I will hear and with you I will bear this sentence that will bring me to your Kingdom. (She is slowly growing more breathless and verging on hysteria) I cannot stand alone; be with me my Lord God!

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Nun Contd… Find a way to forgive me and welcome me to your heart. Help me God, if you are there, hear me and help me. Show me you care, my Lord why would you do this? Help me God! Help me!

(She falls to the ground silently sitting hugging her knees to give the impression of confinement.)

Our Father who art in Heaven, our Father who art in Heaven, our Father who art in Heaven… forgive us our trespasses, forgive us our trespasses, forgive us our trespasses… our Father who art in Heaven, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive, as we forgive, (she stands up and beats the wall, she shouts) Our Father who art in Heaven get me out of here, get me out, someone get me out!

(She builds this up into a crescendo and collapses on the floor again screaming hysterically. The scene ends with her lying, crying loudly on the floor occasionally shouting for help. Directors allow your actress her own freedom to build this as she would. It needs to be pitiful and helpless to give the desperation of the Nun’s plight. Lights go up and we illuminate Harry Price standing at his lectern.)

Price Thank you Annabel. You can get up now. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Annabel James, a great young actress (she stands and bows to the applause). That’s it, take a bow and off you go. (He encourages the audience to applaud her and claps along with them) I thought that would grab your attention. Forgive me, good evening, I’m Harry Price and tonight, I hope to prove to you once and for all that the stories you have heard and, maybe, read in The Mirror about Borley Rectory and its haunting are indeed true. So, you ask, why a Nun? Well that’s where we come in, that is our, how might I say, (ponder) that is the crux, yes crux, that’s a good word, that is the crux of our tale.

You see, the Borley tale starts many centuries ago, or so it is claimed. We go back to 1362; imagine – Borley is just a tiny town on the and border. Standing just about three miles from Sudbury and served by the local town of . Not much there then, as now, as one can imagine, but importantly to our little tale there is a Benedictine monastery. This wretched child, this poor girl, housed in a convent in nearby Bures was in love with a monk from this very same monastery. Their love was reputedly so strong that they planned to elope and get as far away as they could and settle down for a life together. If only they had not been missed, if only their superiors had not found them missing so soon after their departure – if only they had escaped through the woods and not left in a coach and two, if only. I can only presume that the monk would not have been hanged and the poor child we saw before us would not have been walled up with just a loaf and a jug of water. If only, but they made all the wrong choices, knowing the punishment at that time for escaping holy orders was death, they gambled everything for love.

(Pause.)

Hmm? A nice tale and the convenient starting point for a ghost story and as my tale unfolds you will hear of the Nun again, but I am a scientist and I look at evidence not hearsay. I can only give you that tale as a way in, but tonight in this lecture, ladies and gentlemen; I will prove beyond any doubt that Borley Rectory deserves the title of the most haunted house in Britain. Tonight I will give you my scientific evidence and tonight once and for all you will say Borley is what they say it was; I know because it was proved to me by the man that knows. One Harry Price…

So where to begin? Well we have begun, the monastery that was, was eventually destroyed, most likely by Henry the Eighth’s lot in the dissolutions around 1538, but with the ground being holy it became, many years later, the obvious site for our rectory. So in come the Bulls: a clerical family since 1752 and related to the Waldegrave family, who owned almost all of Borley and had done since the .

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Borley OJL 2005©

Price Contd… They are a perfect choice. Henry Dawson Ellis Bull was asked to take over the position of Rector of Borley in 1862. The following year to house himself and his family of fourteen children he built Borley Rectory, the house that we know today as, the most haunted place in the country.

(Lights fade on Harry. We light up the set to find Henry Bull, his wife and son Harry sitting chatting)

Mary What are you planning to talk on in Sunday’s sermon my love?

Bull I don’t know, I was thinking of talking about the local hunt, we haven’t had a kill in four weeks and I was wondering if God was displeased in some way.

Mary Perhaps the fox has gone to ground; you did have an extraordinarily good crop over the Christmas period didn’t you?

Bull (Now standing staring out of the window, seeming absent minded) Yes dear, my god look at that, quick look, on the Nun’s Walk, a rabbit just sat there staring up at the house, it’s a rabbit I’ll tell you, get my gun Mary quickly!

(She exits and returns with a gun. It is most likely to be a rifle.)

Mary Here you are dear.

Bull (He shoots through the window) Come on you blaggard let’s have you, one for the pot I think Mary. (He shoots twice) Got the blighter! I’ll be back.

(He exits.)

Mary Oh I wish he wouldn’t shoot that thing indoors.

(Enter Harry.)

Harry Mama I’ve passed Father hurtling across the hall with a gun over his shoulder shouting, “You’re mine, you’re mine.” What’s up, rabbits again?

Mary Yes dear, rabbits again.

Harry Last time we had rabbits in the garden he went missing for hours and we found him asleep resting his gun on his arm, do you remember? (He crosses to look out of the big windows.)

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Borley OJL 2005©

Mary Darling Son, if I had a sixpence for every time your father goes outside and vanishes I would be a very rich lady of leisure by now, I imagine.

Harry Oh here he comes striding across the lawn. Look at him Mama, the country squire at rest.

Mary Rabbit for dinner tonight I shouldn’t wonder.

Harry Yes I imagine. Why can’t we at least have a fine herd of Aberdeen Angus wondering around out there? At least we would have a variety, eh?

Mary That would be nice wouldn’t it dear?

(Harry sits down on the sofa. Enter Bull.)

Bull That showed the blighter, he’s off for the pot, cook said we could have it in a casserole within an hour and inside us in less than two; yum, yum. I’ll teach them to wonder on our lawns, digging their holes in my begonias.

Harry Father, one would presume they already know how to wonder on our lawns and wouldn’t need lessons.

Bull Ha, ha, how extremely droll.

(The family sit quietly. Mary is sewing, Harry is reading and Bull is polishing his gun.)

Harry (Reading from a paper) Oh I see our gardener’s daughter, the ghastly Cicely Parker is to marry that simpleton from the dairy, oh these people, why on earth should they be allowed to breed, eh? Wrong I call it.

Mary Oh my dear don’t be such a snob, people have a right to these things you know. Even the lesser folk have the right to fall in love.

Harry Pah!

Bull Ah another wedding, I hope Jason can get that awful choir of mine in tune for the day, they still sound like a bunch of drowning cats.

Mary Yes dear they are a trifle discordant are they not?

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Bull I was tempted to let them out on our lawn the other day and give them a little rabbit treatment.

Mary Oh go on with you silly…

Harry Oh here we go again Mama, Papa, look, (reading from the paper) ‘Borley Nun seen standing at the gate post of the Rectory’.

Bull Oh, go on, who’s seen her now?

Harry Well it says here that William Ellis of Borley Green was on his milk round yesterday morning, when she appeared at the gate and looked at him. Oh how ridiculous, looked at him!

Bull Well if he says she looked at him she looked at him. I’ve heard before that someone has seen her at the gatepost.

Mary Well we all have dear; it’s hardly news any more is it?

Bull I want to get to the bottom of all this I really do. You know, I have an idea. I want to build a conservatory looking straight on to the Nun’s Walk; I want to be able to sit there night and day and watch her coming and going.

Mary Why on Earth would you do that Henry?

Bull Well I quite like the poor creature. She’s so sad wandering around forever looking for her Monk. Quite pathetic it really is. I want to watch.

Mary Have you looked into the price of this new extension? How much now? We have only just finished the west wing and that cost more than a vicar can afford that’s for certain.

Bull Nonsense, and anyway the Church has a little bit put away for such eventualities, its rector has to be comfortable I think. But no, this poor girl destined forever they say, to wander the grounds of Borley looking for her monk. Destined forever…

Harry I would ask, Father, if she was walled up in Bures Convent why has she chosen to haunt Borley? It doesn’t make any sense; preposterous it is.

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Bull That, my boy, is something that only she could answer.

Harry I’m not going with this life after death thing at all. Maybe things do happen here but they don’t convince me. Spooky woo twaddle! I decided ages ago I know what I’ll do; I’ll prove it one way or another. When I’m dead I shall return, I shall bring my own supply of something to throw around, just you see, I’ll throw them round night and day, if there’s such a thing as ghosts I’m going to make a pretty good one. I’ll show you.

Mary I hope you don’t show us; it’s our job to go before you, you know.

Harry Well then, maybe not you, but I’ll show someone. I will be the spectre of the Blue Room, just you wait and see. Ghosts indeed: And why do so many ghosts have no heads? I’m sure dead or not I’d never leave my head behind. My keys yes, my wallet maybe but my head? Oh come on.

Bull Oh it’s all so black and white with you isn’t it Harry?

Harry Well Father it is all a little far-fetched. If God had wanted us to live after our demise why did he invent the demise bit in the first place?

Mary (Sternly) Harry.

Bull Ah you see now you’re wandering into the realms of theology. We are not here to question, we are here to serve. Remember that and life will shine upon you.

Harry All well and good Pater, all well and good, but ghosts, hmm, all a bit silly I think.

(The family relax again quietly in their arm chairs. Suddenly there is a loud bang and a big stone falls into the middle of the room. The family all jump… they look, puzzled, at each other.)

Bull You were saying?

(Blackout. Lights up on Harry Price.)

Price So life went on. Bull did build his conservatory and would sit forever watching the path known as the Nun’s Walk which ran through the rectory’s back garden. Sightings of the Nun grew more frequent and she even started to appear in daylight. The most disconcerting sightings were at meal times when she was seen peering at the window. This so frightened the house guests that it became necessary for Bull to brick up the dining room window.

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Price Contd… Bull’s behaviour grew stranger and stranger. He would wander around his garden looking for rabbits to kill or he would sit in his conservatory looking for the lady who became known as the Grey Nun. As his son, also called Henry, who, incidentally, became Harry to avoid confusion, grew older, he would join him and they would sit night and day smoking their pipes and looking for the Nun. Mind you that wasn’t all Bull got up to, as his thirteen other children will bear testimony to. But a Grey Nun? Well there are enough sightings to bear out her existence, the best account being that of a visiting friend, Mr Shaw Jeffry in 1885. He also had stones thrown at him, but I cannot and will not give house room to the theory of a Nun being bricked up and the monk being hanged. There is nothing written and my research on this takes me back to the early twelfth century. There are also claims that their coach and horses is seen around the narrow lanes of Borley too. People say they had to move out of the way as they heard it coming towards them. But nothing has materialised. All very strange, I myself have personal experience of the Grey Nun but have not, as yet, encountered the coach, and nor do I think I will (pompous laugh).

So let us turn our attention back to the Bulls. It’s 1892 and the Reverend Bull dies in the Blue Room at Borley rectory. His son, Harry F. Bull, at only 29, becomes the new Rector and takes over the living at Borley Rectory. He lives there with his four sisters, Ethel, Freda, Mabel and Elsie. There isn’t much noted of interest until later on when Harry aged 48 in 1911 marries a local girl and moves out, leaving his four sisters in the rectory alone.

(Lights dim on Harry Price and we see Elsie and Freda sitting sewing and talking.)

Elsie Why would he marry a girl so much younger, I mean it’s not proper, a man of his standing. It just doesn’t seem right. There must be twenty years between them. And she is a little bit common, a shop girl, I ask of you?

Freda Oh I know dear, I know, what will the villagers be saying? It’s getting that one daren’t show one’s face in the village. I believe they even talk about it in Long Melford. The toast of the Bull I’m sure.

Elsie Ha, So Rector Bull becomes the talk of the Bull, how strange. Oh he’s a disgrace. And that reminds me of all that drinking he did.

Freda And still does or so I’ve been told. There’s been nights, before he left here, that he sat in the conservatory looking for that stupid Nun and he was littered by bottles in the morning. He says he saw her too, on numerous occasions.

Elsie I think he was half cut when he claims he saw the coach, I really do. What a foolish, foolish brother. Father would have a turn if he knew the half of it. To think half the community look to him for spiritual guidance and help, Borley’s good shepherd. Our moral protector: How ridiculous.

(At the back of the set a Nun is seen just walking slowly past, stage left to stage right.)

Freda I know and that poor girl.

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Elsie Less of the poor girl, she wants one thing and one thing only.

Freda Yes, she is so tiresome, this is our house and she won’t get a single brick of it, that’s all she wants you know. I’m convinced of it, gold digging little minx.

Elsie I’m sure you’re right, let’s face it – she could hardly want him for his looks.

Freda Or his virility.

(They both laugh.)

Elsie Oh stop it, dear, stop it.

(Enter Ethel.)

Ethel Hello girls what larks?

Freda We were just pouring our sympathy out on our dear sister in law… god bless the wretched soul. Just trying to make sense of it, wondering why on earth Harry, who has everything, should be interested in this foolish girl that gives him nothing.

Ethel Oh you two you are such gossips you know, I don’t suppose love entered into the equation at all?

Freda Pah!

Ethel I think it’s romantic when one finds true love.

Freda Well the only true love he’s ever found is for himself and for his favourite brand of cigarettes.

Elsie And his favourite brand of whiskey!

Ethel Oh, stop you’re so unfair. Just idle gossip: It’s all we ever seem to do lately.

Elsie You say we’re gossips, I say we have a need to be. It doesn’t take much to work out, given their age difference, that she will come knocking for her rightful property when he finally drinks himself to death as he may well do.

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