Thursday, 14 May 2009

Farleigh Hungerford Castle






Inside the chapel, it is very quiet and the sound of the wind can be heard howling around outside. If I was to place bets on which of the sites I have visited are most likely to have ghosts, I would choose this one for sure.

The English Heritage handbook 2009 claims one Lady Hungerford cooked her unfortunate husband in the castle's ovens. Another Lady Hungerford is known to have been kept prisoner in the Lady Tower by her own husband for 4 years, during which she was fed by kindly villagers from her great window.

There were some suits of armour on display in the Priest's House. The crypt is a very historically important site as it contains some very rare examples of coffins which have death masks attached. These are made shortly after death and moulded on to the bodies. They are indeed very lifelike. However it is not possible to approach them too closely. The reason for this is there is a gate which keeps people out although they can see a great deal from outside. The gate was put there in Victorian times in response to the ghoulish behaviour of certain Victorians who would apparently insert a stick into a hole in the stone coffins so they could withdraw it to taste the embalming liquor!

The marble figures on the tombs in the chapel impressed me most, they are very intact.

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