Farleigh Hungerford Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Overlooking the Frome valley on the Wiltshire border, the ruins of Farleigh Hungerford tell of the fortune and the tragedies of the Hungerford family over more than three centuries. Sir Thomas Hungerford, steward to John of Gaunt, transformed a manor house here in the 1370s–1380s into a fortified residence with a square courtyard, flanked by round towers; his son Walter, 1st Lord Hungerford, enlarged it with a vast outer court enclosing the old parish church. The place is marked by dark episodes: confiscations during the Wars of the Roses, the hanging of Agnes Hungerford for the murder of her first husband, and the execution in 1540 of Walter Hungerford, who had imprisoned his wife in the castle, alongside Thomas Cromwell. Taken and retaken without a fight during the Civil War, it escaped slighting, but was sold in 1705 for its materials and gradually dismantled. Managed today by English Heritage, the site retains two corner towers, the east gatehouse and above all St Leonard's Chapel, with its 15th-century wall paintings and a rare collection of anthropomorphic lead coffins. A priest's house that has remained intact welcomes visitors.