FARINGDON, properly GREAT FARINGDON, a market town in the Abingdon parliamentary division of Berkshire, England, 70 m. N.W. of London on a branch of the G.W.R. from Uffing ton. Pop. of rural district (1931) 10,636. It lies on the slope of a low range of hills which borders the valley of the Thames on the south. The old church of All Saints, with low central tower, is mainly Transitional Norman and Early English, and contains many monuments and brasses, including those of the Unton family (16th century) and a chapel of the Pye family, to whom Faringdon house was restored after being held by the Royalists in the Civil War. The present mansion was rebuilt by Henry James Pye (17451813), poet laureate from 1790 to 1813, who also caused to be planted the conspicuous group of fir-trees on the hill east of the town called Faringdon Clump, or the Folly. Edward the Elder is reputed to have died at Faringdon in a palace of the Saxon kings.