LONGFORD, a hamlet in Britford parish, Wilts; on the river Avon, 2½ miles SE of Salisbury. Longford Castle is the seat of the Earl of Radnor; was built about 1591, by Sir Thomas Georges, at a cost of about £18,000; had originally a triangular form, flanked at the angles by circular towers, and surrounded by a moat; was besieged and captured in 1645, by Cromwell; came into the possession of the Radnor family in 1717; was altered by the late Lord Radnor, who intended to rebuild it in a hexagonal form, but left it unfinished; continues still incomplete, flanked by five towers; and contains a remarkably rich picture-gallery, noted particularly for paintings by Holbein.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))