Curse
Lady Agnes
Strangled, burned, and five years of silence.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Castle ruins, chapel and crypt coffins
- Legend from
- Court records, 1523
- Tone
- Dark history
The kitchen furnace burned hot that night, and Lady Agnes kept her secret for five years.
Farleigh Hungerford Castle stands in ruins above the River Frome. In 1518 Agnes Hungerford, wife of the castle's owner, had her first husband, John Cotell, murdered there. Her servants strangled him, and English Heritage says his body was burned in the kitchen furnace. Agnes married Sir Edward Hungerford and the crime stayed hidden until after his death. In 1523 she was tried, and she was hanged at Tyburn in London. The castle chapel holds the Hungerford family's tombs and a rare collection of human-shaped lead coffins.