Farleigh Hungerford Castle

Extensive and picturesque ruins command splendid views over the valley of the River Frome. The superb chapel contains wall paintings and the fine tomb of Sir Thomas Hungerford, who built the castle in the 1370s; when, we are told on good authority, all knights were bold and chivalrous and all their ladies beautiful and good. The inhabitants of Farleigh seem to have been the exceptions: one was a damsel who, far from being in distress, showed an ability to take care of herself. For this talent the wicked Lady Hungerford was hanged at Tyburn in 1523 on a charge of strangling her husband and then having his body burned in the castle's kitchen. A later Lady Hungerford was walled up in one of its towers for four long years by her husband. And no one has been able to satisfactorily explain the eight lead coffins in the crypt beneath the chapel. No wonder the castle is a ruin, it was obviously dangerous to live there!