DAY OUT: Castles
Nunney Castle and Farleigh Hungerford
VIDEOS
By Tim Saunders
“Let’s go and explore some castles,” I say to the children, one half-term break.
A quick look on the English Heritage website shows me that some fine examples can be found in Somerset. We’ve got a day free and the weather’s good, so get in the car. A couple of hours later we find ourselves at Nunney Castle near Frome. What a delightful location. We park in the village car park and because there are no directions to the castle from here we quickly get lost and begin strolling purposefully through a field, which leads to some water. It’s a lovely walk and the children find some structures that amuse them. Getting lost in the English countryside. What fun. “Where is this castle then?” questions Henry (6), who then resorts to his old tactic. “I need a piggy back.”
“Not on your nelly, mate.”
He quickly recovers and tears off into the distance. A dog walker points us to the castle and we retrace our steps out of the car park and this time down the hill into the village. The castle can be accessed down a quaint side street and in front there’s a bench, perfect for our picnic. So we sit there admiring the view. A flowing river and a bridge, very idyllic. It isn’t long before Henry spies a challenge. The stone wall behind the bench. Why on earth would you want to walk through the gate when you could climb this? Surprisingly, he actually gets up, aided by Heidi (9) pulling him over.
We enjoy walking round the grounds, looking at the moat, full of water and with many ducks and two delightful wagtails, having the time of their lives. I wasn’t sure they were wagtails at the time but having checked it is quite pleasing to have correctly spotted these. Doves are roosting inside the castle ruins and Heidi and Henry enjoy their exploration mission. We all happily while away a good couple of hours here.
“Would you like to visit another castle, Henry?” I enquire.
“Oh yes please.”
We have a little walk around Nunney itself where we hear some lovely French from a couple of tourists. This is a quintessential English village so no surprise that there are some tourists here. We visit the church and enjoy the architecture of the buildings in this village. It’s nice to see a well cared for place.
We get back in the car and travel eight miles to Farleigh Hungerford Castle in Bath.
Here we have an audio tour, which is definitely helpful. The voices and stories are particularly engaging here. The children follow it better than I do and we all love the quizzes, which help us to remember some facts. For instance, how was food smuggled to a prisoner in the Lady Tower? Three options and the right one is by a basket hoisted up through the window. There’s a huge amount of history attached to any castle and this one is no different. You’ve got the sheer wealth of the chap who built it, Thomas Hungerford, who happened to be the first recorded speaker of the House of Commons, the Sir Lindsay Hoyle of the day. But then there’s murder, executions and foolhardiness, which ultimately results in the loss of this substantial county seat. The Hungerford family lived here for 300 years and then following Edward Hungerford, a spendthrift, it was all lost forever. The importance of appreciating the value of money. We learn that the Lady Tower was partly destroyed by a fire accidentally created by children. The Chapel is magnificent and still retains a fine wall painting of George and the Dragon as well as Hungerford family tombs. Underneath there is a crypt containing unknown tombs, considered to be the finest such example in England today.
A fig tree catches our interest along with some of the largest poppies we have ever seen.
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