👻 HAUNTED PLACE · EXP. Nº9476
ACTIVE
Faringdon: All Saints' Church
Faringdon: All Saints' Church is a location reputed to be haunted in Oxfordshire, GB. Its reputation comes from reported apparitions, unexplained phenomena and eyewitness accounts gathered over time.
Where is Faringdon: All Saints' Church?
- Location
- Oxfordshire, GB
- Type
- Church / religious site
- Coordinates
- 51.657, -1.586
- Testimonies
- 0
- Last updated
LOCATION
Why is Faringdon: All Saints' Church said to be haunted?
Faringdon's ghost is not a Civil War soldier, though the town has the war all over it: Cromwell was beaten off Faringdon House in April 1645, the church lost its spire, and the townspeople's claim for the wreckage was assessed at £56,976. The figure said to walk the north side of All Saints' churchyard, along the wall facing the house, is a headless naval officer - Hampden Pye, born here in 1646, whose head the story says was carried off by a cannon shot at the taking of Vigo in 1702, and whom a priest is said to have finally laid with bell, book and candle. It is one of the few English ghosts whose paper trail can be followed name by name: told to the Reverend Richard Harris Barham by Mary Ann Hughes, printed by him as "The Legend of Hamilton Tighe" in March 1837, and pinned to the Pye family in a footnote he signed with the name of an invented housekeeper. Between the supposed death and that first printing lie about 135 years - and a pedigree that does not fit the tale.
What is the history of Faringdon: All Saints' Church?
Faringdon sits on the northern lip of the Vale of White Horse, where the London-Gloucester road crosses the smaller road that reaches the Thames at Radcot Bridge, two and a half miles away. That crossing is the only reason a market town of this size has a war story at all.
In November 1644, returning to Oxford, Charles I stopped overnight in Faringdon, decided the town should quarter his horse, and appointed Colonel George Lisle governor of the town and garrison. The house Lisle's men fortified was not the present Faringdon House but a rambling Elizabethan mansion built in the 1590s for Sir Henry Unton, standing closer to the church. Its owner was Sir Robert Pye, Remembrancer of the Exchequer, who had bought the manor in 1623 from Sir John Wentworth. Pye spent the first years of the war on the fence, passing at Westminster for a supporter of Parliament while quietly sending money to the King. His eldest son, also Robert, had married Anne, daughter of John Hampden, and raised a troop of horse for Parliament. The family was not in residence when the Royalists moved in.
On the evening of 28 April 1645 Oliver Cromwell, then commanding the horse in the Oxford district, reported to the Committee of Both Kingdoms that he was "quartered up to Faringdon". Next morning he sent a summons to the house: "Sir, I summon you to deliver into my hands the house wherein you are, and your ammunition, with all things else there, together with your Persons to be disposed of as the Parliament shall appoint: which, if you refuse to do, you are to expect the utmost extremity of war." Refused, he wrote again, arguing that the garrison had pressed poor men into the house who could not be armed: "If God gives you into my hands, I will not spare a Man of you, if you put me to a Storm." Lisle was away. The answer came from Colonel Roger Burges, commanding in the house: "We have forced none into our Garison: we would have you know you are not now at Blechington."
At three o'clock in the morning on 30 April the foot went in with scaling ladders. Captain Canon reared the first ladder, climbed it first, and was taken prisoner at the top with an ensign and eight troopers. Fourteen men were killed. Cromwell abandoned the assault and never tried the house again.
It fell a year later, and to the owner's son. In May 1646, closing on Oxford, Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the Faringdon command to Colonel Sir Robert Pye the younger: a native of the town, sitting down in front of his own father's house, which he expected to inherit. He does not appear to have pressed it hard. Faringdon was written into the capitulation of Oxford as Article XXIV, and at about ten in the morning on 24 June 1646 the garrison marched out with the honours of war. Two years later the Lords' Journals recorded the townspeople's claim for the ruin of "their habitations, goods, and church", assessed by workmen at £56,976 4s. 0d.
The ghost belongs to the next generation and to a different war. Sir Robert and Anne Pye's eldest son was christened Hampden Pye and born in 1646, the year the fighting ended here. What Faringdon has said about him since at least the 1830s is that he went to sea, had his head taken off by a cannon shot, and came back: a headless naval officer walking the north side of All Saints' churchyard, along the wall that faces Faringdon House, until a priest laid him with bell, book and candle.
That story reached print by a route that can be followed name by name. Mary Ann Hughes, whose own father was - in her son's words - "a neighbour and brother magistrate" of Mr Pye the Poet Laureate, passed it to the Reverend Richard Harris Barham, who made it "The Legend of Hamilton Tighe" for Bentley's Miscellany in March 1837. Barham's son printed the provenance in his father's Life and Letters, quoting Mrs Hughes's son: "The Original Ghost Story was said to have occurred in the family of the late Mr. Pye, the Poet Laureate, a neighbour and brother magistrate of my maternal grandfather, and the date of it was supposed to be connected with the taking of Vigo." Barham gave the name away himself, in a footnote signed by a fictional housekeeper: "everybody knows that the poor young gentleman's real name wasn't Sobriquet at all, but Hampden Pye, Esq., and that one of his uncles - or cousins - used to make verses about the king and the queen, and had a sack of money for doing it every year.".
Timeline: the documented record of Faringdon: All Saints' Church
- 1623 Sir Robert Pye, Remembrancer of the Exchequer, buys the manor of Faringdon from Sir John Wentworth. The house his family acquires is the Elizabethan mansion built in the 1590s for Sir Henry Unton, standing nearer the church than the present one.
- November 1644 Charles I, halting overnight in Faringdon on his way back to Oxford, decides the town shall quarter his horse and appoints Colonel George Lisle governor of the town and garrison.
- 29 April 1645 Cromwell sends two summonses to Faringdon House. Colonel Roger Burges, commanding inside in Lisle's absence, answers: "We have forced none into our Garison: we would have you know you are not now at Blechington."
- 3 a.m., 30 April 1645 The escalade fails. Captain Canon, first up the first ladder, is captured with an ensign and eight troopers; fourteen attackers are killed. Cromwell abandons the assault and never attempts the house again - Faringdon is one of the few places that repelled him.
- 1646 Hampden Pye is born at Faringdon, eldest son of Sir Robert Pye the younger and Anne, daughter of the parliamentarian John Hampden. The compiled family pedigree records his birth and gives him no death date.
- 24 June 1646 Under Article XXIV of the Articles of Oxford, the Faringdon garrison marches out at about ten in the morning with the honours of war. The besieging commander was Colonel Sir Robert Pye the younger, the owner's son, sitting down in front of the house he expected to inherit.
- 2 September 1648 The Lords' Journals record a draft order for a collection for the inhabitants of Faringdon and Westbrook, whose "habitations, goods, and church" had been demolished and burnt; the damage is assessed by workmen at £56,976 4s. 0d.
- 1701 Sir Robert Pye and his wife Anne both die, "having lived together for sixty years in great reputation"; he is buried at Faringdon on 28 December. This is the year before the battle to which the ghost story is attached, which rules out the mother or stepmother who supposedly sent Hampden to sea.
- 12 October 1702 An Anglo-Dutch fleet under Sir George Rooke destroys the Spanish treasure fleet and its French escort at Redondela, inside Vigo Bay. This is the event the Pye family itself attached to the story, according to the account Barham was given.
- March 1837 The oldest printed appearance of the story I have been able to date: Richard Harris Barham publishes "The Legend of Hamilton Tighe" in Bentley's Miscellany, with a footnote signed by his fictional housekeeper naming the young man as "Hampden Pye, Esq." and his relative as the Poet Laureate.
- 1870 Barham's son prints the provenance in his father's Life and Letters, quoting Mrs Hughes's son: the original ghost story "was said to have occurred in the family of the late Mr. Pye, the Poet Laureate, a neighbour and brother magistrate of my maternal grandfather".
- 1926 When the bells of All Saints' come down to be recast by John Taylor & Co., a broken cannonball is found inside the tower wall and removed. The ball shown to visitors today is a different one, in a case on the east wall of the south transept.
- 1935 Lord Berners builds the Folly tower on Faringdon Hill, over local objections. The hill had been called the Folly long before there was a tower on it. Robert Heber-Percy later gave tower and woodland to the town.
Is there a rational explanation for Faringdon: All Saints' Church?
Date the story, not just the event. The family itself put the death at the taking of Vigo - the Anglo-Dutch attack on the Spanish treasure fleet at Redondela on 12 October 1702. The earliest printed appearance I have been able to fix is Barham's poem in Bentley's Miscellany in March 1837: a gap of about 135 years. The printed link to Faringdon is thinner still, because it is Barham's own joke - a footnote signed "Elizabeth Botherby", a fictional housekeeper he used as a running character. A local ghost identified in verse by an invented servant is not a record; it is a literary aside that the town later took literally.
Then do the arithmetic the story allows. The retelling that circulates makes Hampden Pye a young man packed off to sea by his mother (or, in Barham, a stepmother) to break up an unsuitable match. The family pedigree gives him a birth year of 1646, which would make him fifty-six at Vigo. Both his parents died in 1701, the year before the battle; Sir Robert was buried at Faringdon on 28 December. There was no stepmother, and by 1702 there was no mother to send him anywhere. David Nash Ford, who worked through the genealogy for Royal Berkshire History, reaches the same conclusion.
I could not confirm that Hampden Pye served at sea at all. The compiled Pye pedigree gives him a birth year and no death year, and the estate descended through his younger brother Edmund (1656-1705). That is an absence of evidence in sources that are thin for a younger son of a country gentleman, not a proof he never existed - but the ficha should not assert a naval career that no muster or list I could reach supports. It is also worth noting that the family produced a second Hampden Pye a century later: Robert Hampden Pye, born at Faringdon in 1746, an officer of the Foot Guards and brother of the Poet Laureate.
The Civil War material has its own problem. All Saints' own visitor guide states that the spire was "destroyed during the Civil War by Cromwell's battery on or below Folly Hill aiming at Faringdon House behind". Cyril Hughes Hartman, who wrote the archival account of the siege, argues the opposite: Cromwell's was a mobile cavalry force, no guns appear in his own despatches from Bletchington or Bampton in the days before, four pieces of ordnance were surrendered inside the house, and the townspeople blamed the garrison, not the besiegers. The Victoria County History dates the destruction to 1645; other local accounts to 1646. Nobody can date it, and nobody knows who fired.
Two details that circulate about the church are simply misplaced. The cannonball on show is in a case on the east wall of the south transept, under the overhang - not lodged in the tower. A separate broken ball was found inside the tower wall in 1926, when the bells came down to be recast, and was taken out. And the belief that Sir Marmaduke Rawdon was governor of Faringdon, repeated in most retellings, derives - according to Hartman - from a misreading of the only visible words on a ledger stone now under a choir stall: Marmol hoc posuit Marmaduc Rawdon Armiger, "this stone was placed here by Marmaduke Rawdon, Esquire". A man who placed a stone is not necessarily the man under it, and was certainly not the governor.
Finally, the institution itself is the best sceptic available. The church's own pilgrim guide walks the visitor through the tower, the cannonball, the Unton Chapel and the Pye Chapel, and does not mention a ghost.
Can you visit Faringdon: All Saints' Church?
Faringdon is a market town of about 7,100 people in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire - historically in Berkshire until the boundary change of 1974, which is why much of the older literature files it under that county. It lies roughly 18 miles (29 km) south-west of Oxford and 12 miles (19 km) east-north-east of Swindon, on the A420. There is no railway station; the nearest are Swindon and Oxford, both linked by bus.
The churchyard is the part of the story you can actually stand in. All Saints' Church, Church Street, SN7 7HW, is at the head of the town, a short walk uphill from the Market Place. The churchyard is open and free; the north side, along the wall towards Faringdon House, is where the headless figure was said to walk. The church itself is not open all day: in summer it has been opened to visitors on some Wednesday afternoons, roughly 1-3 p.m., and it is of course open for services - check the parish website before making a special trip. Inside, the things to look for are the cannonball in a case on the east wall of the south transept, the massive 13th-century tower piers with their carved capitals and stone heads, the Unton Chapel with the kneeling figure of Lady Dorothy Unton, and the Pye Chapel, where Sir Robert and Lady Pye lie under a stone now half-hidden by an altar step. The Barber Rooms behind the church, opened in 2014, provide toilets and refreshments when in use.
Faringdon House is private, and this matters. It is a Grade I listed country house built for Henry James Pye between about 1770 and 1785 - the Elizabethan house the Royalists held burned down in the late 1760s and no longer exists. Lord Berners lived here from 1931 with Robert Heber-Percy; it passed to Heber-Percy's granddaughter Sofka Zinovieff and was sold in 2018. It is a family home and is not open to the public. There are no tours and no ghost walks; the grounds are private. Please do not approach the gates or the drive.
What you can climb is the Folly. The tower on Folly Hill, off Stanford Road (SN7 8EP), was built in 1935 by Lord Berners - the hill was called the Folly long before the tower was put on it - and is now run by the Faringdon Folly Tower Trust. In a normal season it opens on the first and third Sundays of the month from April to the end of October, with admission around £3 for adults, £1 for 11-16s and 50p under 11. Important: the tower has been closed for extensive repairs, with reopening announced for July/August 2026, so confirm on the Trust's website before travelling. The surrounding four-acre woodland has permissive public access all year and carries a sculpture trail. Access involves steps and there is no lift in the tower.
In the Market Place, the Old Town Hall - a 17th-century market hall on Tuscan stone columns, Grade II* listed - was built in the years immediately after the siege, when the town was rebuilding. It is the building in the photograph on this file.
Sources consulted
- Cyril Hughes Hartman, «Faringdon in the Civil War» — Pamphlet, undated; PDF published by faringdon.org book
- William Page and P. H. Ditchfield (eds.), «Parishes: Great Faringdon» — A History of the County of Berkshire, vol. 4 (Victoria County History), 1924 book
- Richard Harris Barham ('Thomas Ingoldsby'), «The Legend of Hamilton Tighe» — Bentley's Miscellany, vol. I, no. 3 (March 1837); later in The Ingoldsby Legends, first series, 1837 newspaper archive
- Richard Harris Dalton Barham, «The Life and Letters of the Rev. Richard Harris Barham» — Richard Bentley, London, 1870 book
- B. D. Henning (ed.), «PYE, Sir Robert (c.1622-1701), of Faringdon, Berks.» — The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, 1983 academic
- All Saints' Church, Faringdon, «All Saints' Church, Faringdon: Pilgrim's Guide» — Parish visitor leaflet report
- Faringdon and District Archaeological and Historical Society, «All Saints Church / Faringdon House» — Faringdon History Website web
- David Nash Ford, «The Ghost of Hampden Pye (Faringdon)» — Royal Berkshire History web
- Faringdon Community Website, «Descendants of Robert Pye (1585-1662)» — Compiled pedigree (PDF) report
- The Faringdon Folly Tower Trust, «Faringdon Folly Tower and Woodland» — Official site of the managing trust (registered charity 284795) web
- Royal Museums Greenwich, «The Battle of Vigo Bay, 12 October 1702» — National Maritime Museum collection, 1702 archive
Reviewed by V. Serrano on 2026-08-12 · How we verify our content
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