Borley Rectory – a dark and sinister Victorian mansion set in a sparsely populated area of Essex – became, in the last century, a platform for a series of such chilling and frightening events that it was dubbed ‘The Most Haunted House in England’.

Even today, almost seventy years after the building burned to the ground, the site of the long-demolished rectory still attracts huge crowds at Halloween, and ghost hunters, psychics and mediums still explore the sombre-looking grounds year round.

In 1929, Harry Price, founder of the National Laboratory for Psychical Research, began a series of investigations at the house. Could it be true that a house occupied by a small-time country curate, the Rev Lionel Foyster, his wife, Marianne, and their adopted baby daughter Adelaide, were being so badly haunted by a legion of ghostly apparitions that they were on the point of fleeing the curacy?

Having only moved in the previous year, the couple had at first loved the huge many-roomed building. In that short time, however, they had come to realise they were not alone: the house seemed to be troubled by ghostly apparitions and strange noises. Among the unquiet spirits was a headless man and a girl in white; there was the spectral figure of a nun that walked the garden, while the sounds of a phantom coach was heard to draw up outside the house. Inside there were blood-curdling noises such as dragging footsteps, screams, and loud rappings and bangs.

But this was only the beginning. Once Price began his investigations it appeared to upset the phantoms so much that the rectory began to receive the attentions of that most malevolent – and some might say most dangerous entity of all – a poltergeist.

Bells rang, lights flashed, and objects moved through the air. Mysterious written messages began to appear on the walls and on paper scattered about the house. As the malevolence grew, the rappings became louder and more frantic, doors locked themselves, and furniture overturned, and when it seemed impossible for anything further to happen to the house itself, the evil presence turned its full attentions on Marianne, throwing her from her bed, striking her around the head and body, and at its most severe, causing heavy objects to fly at her night and day.

The messages were the most frightening phenomena of all: child-like scrawls addressed to Marianne by name, appealing for light, candles, prayers and masses. The plucky wife actually began a correspondence with the entity, and in answer to her questions for further information, the scrawls indicated that they were being made by a tortured female entity, in need of exorcism.

The breakthrough came when, using an Ouija board, Price communicated with the spirit of a nun who claimed to have been murdered by one Henry Waldegrave, a former lord of the manor. She said her name was Marie Lairre, and that she had left her order to marry him. Waldegrave had grown tired of her and subsequently strangled her, hiding her remains in the cellar. She also told Price that she could not rest until her body had been buried on consecrated land.

In March of 1938, at another séance, a new spirit calling itself ‘Sunex Amores’ predicted that the rectory would burn down that very night – but it did not happen. However, eleven months later, and in what at the time was described as mysterious circumstances, the house did burn to the ground.

Sometime later, Price would uncover the evidence he felt proved Marie Lairre’s story true: his team – while digging in an area where the nun had indicated she had been buried – discovered the pitiful remains of a female.

His investigations now complete, Price had the remains buried in consecrated ground, and the hauntings apparently ceased – but not for good.

Today, whatever should linger has transferred itself to the nearby church, where lights and voices have been heard. Yet the grounds where stood that old mansion – that terribly dark and sinister old mansion – sometimes still echo with the screams of those who – for one brief moment – believe they have seen the nun, or heard the phantom coach approaching...

In 1901, did two unassuming English school mistresses somehow whisk theselves back in time and witness events that had taken place a hundred years previously?

If Eleanor Jourdain and Anne Moberly were around today, they would certainly tell you yes; they even wrote a book about their experiences: An Adventure.

That August 10 afternoon, the two middle-aged spinsters were visiting the grand palace of Versailles. There were two smaller palaces in the extensive grounds: one, the Petite Trianon, had been (though they did not know it at the time) the home of the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, and this was the building they decided to make for.

Obscure and winding paths took the two tourists away, and soon they entered the backwoods of the vast Versailles estate, noticing as they went that the atmosphere was somehow changing. Where it had moments before been sunny and light, the air now became cold and oppressive.

The further they seemed to penetrate this strange and dreamy ‘other-world’ the more they began to see and hear: men and women dressed in old-fashioned 18th-century garb; a cottage here and there – unmarked on their modern-day map; distant voices in the woods, or the shrill strains of music.

At first it seemed almost enchanting, and except for the deeply oppressive atmosphere, one might have called it ‘fairy-like’ – but the reverie was about to change to turn decidedly unfriendly.

Up ahead they spied a small round kiosk by which sat, in the shadows, an evil-looking man. He provoked fear in the ladies by turning his head towards them; revealing a swarthy pock-marked face and chilling eyes that seemed to look not at them – but through them. Quickly they moved on, only to be approached – seemingly out of nowhere – by a gentleman wearing a wide-brimmed hat, a cloak, and buckled shoes. He frantically called out that they should take the path to the right to reach the palace.

Following his instructions, ahead of them the two spinsters saw the Petite Trianon, and from this point on the gloom began to lift; but if the ladies thought their strange ordeal was over, they were wrong.

Near a terrace that wrapped its way around two sides of the palace, Anne Moberly observed a woman who appeared to be sketching. The woman was dressed in a broad-brimmed white hat and a low-cut dress with a full skirt. The light-coloured scarf, draped around her shoulders, suggested to Miss Moberly that this lady belonged to another time completely – yet here she was.

Finally, the ladies entered the Petite Trianon, there to be met by a wedding party in full flow – thankfully, a 20th-century wedding party.

So what had happened to the two visitors? The school mistresses afterwards delved into the history of the Petite Trianon, discovering not only the connection to Marie Antoinette, but Miss Moberly now recognised that much-hated aristocrat from a painting – as the lady she had seen sketching in front of the palace.

Believing they had truly gone back in time, Eleanor Jourdain and Anne Moberly – after checking through historical records – were able to fix what they believed to be the exact date they had travelled back to: August 10th, 1792 – a day notoriously pivotal in French history, when revolutionary forces had arrested and taken away to face the guillotine the royal family – Marie Antoinette included.

Some say she had been enjoying one of her favourite pastimes as they came for her – sketching.