[1] Recent local research suggests that the name Borley may be derived from the Celtic ‘borle’, meaning ‘summer meadows’ which are still a prominent feature of the area.

[7] He died in the Tower of London in 1561 aged forty-four having fallen out of favour with Queen Elizabeth; his widow, Lady Frances Neville, later erected a monument to him and herself in Borley Church.

[11] Borley Church, dedication unknown, is a Grade I Listed building of stone, originally in the Romanesque/Early English style of the late 12th and early 13th centuries.

[12] There is no "defined village envelope" and therefore for planning purposes, Borley and Borely Green (an area of grassland owned by Braintree District Council) are considered to be "countryside".

[13] Borley is located within Natural England's South Suffolk and North Essex Clayland National Character Area, with "an ancient landscape of wooded arable countryside with a distinct sense of enclosure".

Beginning in 1929, psychical researcher Harry Price generated a story that captured the attention of the nation and convinced many of the proof of the permanence of the spirit after death.

Any possible evidence of ghosts was irredeemably contaminated by Price's behaviour and the manipulation of the facts in his two books, The Most Haunted House in England and The End of Borley Rectory, produced during and immediately after the Second World War.