Borley vs. Ballentin--Did These Haunted Homes Share Similar History or Did Ballechin Serve As Archetype For One Of England's Most Haunted Homes?

Ballechin House

In the sometimes controversial, yet unceasingly popular, case of the Borley Rectory haunting (one investigated famously by Harry Price), we can see striking parallels to an earlier haunting in Perthshire at Ballechin House in 1892.

Price was certainly aware of these uncanny comparisons, but did he draw the right conclusions? Price seemed to have remarked upon them only as if they were another layer in the mystery of Borley. Did he, I wonder, consider that Ballechin was a template for reports given by witnesses such as Rectory owners, Mr. and Mrs. H. D. E. Bull and Mrs. E. Byford?

Some of the remarkable similarities are laid out as follows:

Both are large, rambling homes in remote locations built upon the remains of earlier homes, dating back hundreds of years.

Legends of suicide, murder, death, and scandal abound at each.

Both contain a "Blue Room," the focus of many reported phenomena.

Both houses were reported as inexplicably cold by visitors.

Each possessed a patina of Roman Catholicism about them, which factored greatly into reported events. For example, phantom nuns appeared at both locations.

Both houses endured poltergeist activity, nocturnal manifestations that plagued sleepers, and apparitions (a headless man named 'Old Amos' at Borley; a unnamed legless man at Ballechin).

Exorcisms performed at both.

Dogs hated these places.

Maids did, too.

Renters and tenants were known to leave quite suddenly, and in the case of a Spanish family at Ballechin, forfeit 9 months rent just to leave.