Its views extend to the River Thames in the north and the highest ground visible is on the Ridgeway in the south.

[1] On 1 February 2004, Faringdon became the first place in south-east England to be awarded Fairtrade Town status.

Claims, for example by P. J. Goodrich,[2] that King Edward the Elder (reigned 899–924) died in Faringdon are unfounded.

[4] Faringdon was one of many settlements owned by the king, so had the benefit of paying no geld, a land tax.

After the Conquest a castle was erected in Faringdon by the Earl of Gloucester, which was afterwards razed by Stephen, who built upon its site a priory for Cistercian monks, subject to Beaulieu Abbey, in Hampshire.

Faringdon developed into a borough and was apparently already separate from the hundred of Wyfold when granted by King John to Beaulieu Abbey.

[6] The Faringdon land grant became an outlying grange, one of a network of farms, worked to provide food for the monks and also to help support the abbey's economy.

At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the early sixteenth century, the abbey lands in Faringdon were sold to wealthy nobles.

Due to major populations increases in boroughs and cities, the increase in transportation between regions, and longstanding ties between communities, the centuries-old county boundaries had in many areas become a hindrance to "getting things done", both in the administration of government functions and in some areas in daily business and personal activities.

So in the 20th century a major restructuring across England and Wales meant that the local impact would cause Faringdon and nearby parishes (i.e. all the parishes of the hundred of Faringdon) to be transferred from Berkshire to Oxfordshire when the border was redrawn on 1 April 1974 due to the Local Government Act 1972.

[6] All Saints has a central bell tower, which was reduced in height in 1645 after it was damaged by a cannonball in the English Civil War.

Oliver Cromwell fortified it in an unsuccessful campaign to defeat the Royalist garrison at Faringdon House.

The Pye family had Scots pines planted around the summit, around the time that Faringdon House was rebuilt in the late 18th century.

The scholar John Garth has suggested that the folly was inspiration for Saruman's tower, Orthanc, in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings,[20] and that Berners's painting of the Folly atop its hill led Tolkien to make a similar painting of a view in the Shire, "The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the-Water".

[27] It is rich in fossil sponges, other invertebrates, a few vertebrate bones and teeth, and good examples of bioerosion.

[29] Stagecoach West run the S6 service up to every 15 minutes between Swindon, Shrivenham, Watchfield, Faringdon, Buckland, Southmoor, Besselsleigh, Botley and Oxford.