A quiet dawn walk among the ruins of Farleigh Hungerford Castle

This video was recorded 3rd January 2022.

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The text below is captioned with this video, enable CC to read along during the walk.

Hello. I hope you are keeping well. I recorded this walk in early January before I contracted COVID. I’ve revisited the footage and edited together a short walk. This morning we start our walk along the River Frome, we then journey up to walk around the ruins of Farleigh Hungerford Castle, located within the small village of Farleigh Hungerford, Somerset, England. Farleigh Hungerford is approx 113 mile drive from central London and about an 8 mile drive from its nearest city - Bath. The castle was constructed in the 14th century by Sir Thomas Hungerford. The castle then stayed mainly in the Hungerford family for around 300 years. Except for during The English Civil War in the mid-17th century, when it was held by the crown. The Hungerford family certainly had an interesting history: In 1523, at the age of 20, Walter Hungerford III inherited the castle. Walter locked Elizabeth, his 3rd wife, in a tower starving her and repeatedly tried to poison her. It is documented that Elizabeth had to resort to drinking her own urine to survive. Over time rumours surrounding the treatment of Elizabeth leaked. Walter was beheaded on 28th July 1540. His head was mounted on a spike at London Bridge. The last Hungerford to own Farleigh Hungerford Castle was Edward. His gambling problem created great debts. Edward was forced to sell to Sir Henry Bayntun in 1686. The castle and land were sold for £56,000 equating to around £7,750,000 today. In the 18th century the castle fell into decline. In 1702, the castle was sold to Hector Cooper, then passed to the Houlton family in 1730. The Houlton’s dismantled the castle walls and distributed its contents for salvage. By the the mid-18th century the castle was in ruins. The castle’s chapel was repaired and re-established in 1779 but two of the castle’s main towers had both collapsed by the end of 1797. Over time though the site gathered archaeological interest. In the 1840s Colonel John Houlton, turned the chapel into a museum of curiosities. Visitors could come and see artefacts from The English Civil War. As well as letters between Walter Hungerford and Oliver Cromwell. In 1846 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte even came to see the ruins. Over time the castle past to various owners and fell into further ruin. At the start of the 20th century the castle was smothered almost entirely by ivy. However these unique ivy covered and tree populated ruins proved popular with artists. Over the years various works were undertook to restore elements of the castle, some more popular than others, and the artists eventually lost their romanticised ruined looking castle. In 1983 English Heritage took responsibility of the site. English Heritage now manage the ruins, I’ll add a link in the description. I visited early before the site opened to the public. If you go during opening hours you can explore more of the ruins. There is also a shop and exhibition space with displays and an audio tour. Thank you for reading and walking along today. If you haven’t please like the video and subscribe. Do leave a comment, it is lovely to hear from people all over the world. You can also follow me on Instagram. Support the channel by buying me a virtual coffee, there is a link in the description. It gives me great pleasure to share my walks and make places like this more accessible. I hope we meet for another wander soon... maybe in Greenwich x

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/v...