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Berkeley Castle ( ; historically sometimes spelled as Berkley Castle or Barkley Castle) is a castle in the town of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England. The castle's origins date back to the 11th century and it is a Grade I listed building.
The castle, traditionally believed to have been the scene of the murder of King Edward II in 1327, has remained in the possession of the Berkeley family since they reconstructed it in the 12th century, except for a period of royal ownership under the Tudor dynasty.According to an article by James Lees-Milne in the 18th edition of Burke's Landed Gentry, Volume 1 (1965).
The Berkeley barony having separated from the earldom in 1882, the 8th and last Earl of Berkeley (1865–1942) bequeathed the ancestral seat www.berkeley-castle.com to his 13th cousin, Captain Robert Berkeley, of Spetchley Park in Worcestershire (1898–1969), whose grandson, Charles Berkeley (born 1968), www.burkespeerage.com High Sheriff of Gloucestershire for 2019/20, www.highsheriffofgloucestershire.org.uk inherited the castle and estate from his father, Major John Berkeley (1931–2017). www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk
Since 1956, Berkeley Castle has been open to visitors (for a fee) and remains open from April to November (in 2023) on certain days of the week. The property has also been available for rent for private events.
In 1153–54, Fitzharding received a Charter from Henry II giving him permission to rebuild the castle. Fitzharding built the circular shell keep between 1153 and 1156, probably on the site of the former motte. The building of the curtain wall followed, probably between 1160 & 1190 by Robert and then by his son Sir Maurice Berkeley.
Much of the rest of Berkeley Castle is 14th century and was built for Thomas de Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley: Thorpe's Tower, to the north of the keep, the inner gatehouse to its southwest, and other buildings of the inner bailey.
Historical sources record that Edward was murdered there on 21 September 1327. (1977). 9780901571878, Kingsmead. ISBN 9780901571878 Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1587 edition), drawing on earlier sources, describes Edward's murder in detail:
they the came suddenlie one night into the chamber where he laie in bed fast asléepe, and with heavie featherbeds or a table (as some sources write) being cast upon him, they kept him down and withall put into his fundament i.e., an horne, and through the same they thrust up into his bodie an hot spit, or (as other sources have) through the pipe of a trumpet a plumbers instrument of iron made verie hot, the which passing up into his intrailes, and being rolled to and fro, burnt the same, but so as no appearance of any wound or hurt outwardlie might be once perceived. His crie did moove manie within the castell and towne of Berkley to compassion, plainelie hearing him utter a wailefull noise, as the tormentors were about to murther him, so that diverse i.e., being awakened therewith (as they themselues confessed) praied heartilie to God to receive his soule, when they understood by his crie what the matter ment.
Christopher Marlowe's tragedy Edward II ( The troublesome raigne and lamentable death of Edward the second, King of England, first published 1594) depicts the murder at Berkeley Castle, using props mentioned in Holinshed, and popular stories of a red-hot poker or suffocation continue to circulate. The cell where Edward is supposed to have been imprisoned and murdered can still be seen, along with the adjacent 11 m (36 ft) deep dungeon, which supposedly echoes the events of the murder every year on 21 September. Holinshed's account records that, leading up to the murder, Edward's keepers "lodged the miserable prisoner in a chamber ouer a foule filthie dungeon, full of dead carrion, trusting so to make an end of him, with the abhominable stinch thereof: but he bearing it out stronglie, as a man of a tough nature, continued still in life."
The account given to Parliament at the time was that Edward had met with a fatal accident, but Holinshed and other historical sources record that great effort was made to keep the murder secret. The body was embalmed and remained lying in state at Berkeley for a month, in the Chapel of St John within the castle keep, before Thomas de Berkeley escorted it to Gloucester Abbey for burial. Thomas was later charged with being an accessory to the murder, but his defence was that it was carried out by the agents of Roger Mortimer while he was away from the castle, and in 1337 he was cleared of all charges.
In the 14th century, the Great Hall was given a new roof and it is here the last Jester in England, Dickie Pearce, died after falling from the minstrels' gallery. His tomb is in St Mary's churchyard, adjacent to the castle. Adjoining the Great Hall was the Chapel of St Mary (now the Morning Room) with its painted wooden vaulted ceilings and a biblical passage, written in Norman French.
A dispute about the ownership of Berkeley Castle between Thomas Talbot, 2nd Viscount Lisle, and William Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley, led to the Battle of Nibley Green.
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn visited Berkeley in August 1535, after staying at Gloucester. Historical Manuscripts Commission, 12th Report, Appendix 9: Gloucester (London, 1891), p. 444. In the late 16th century Queen Elizabeth I visited the castle and played bowls on its bowling green.
During the First English Civil War, the castle was held by a Cavalier garrison and was captured in 1645 by a Parliamentarian force under Colonel Thomas Rainsborough; after a short siege that saw cannon being fired at point-blank range from the adjacent church roof of Saint Mary the Virgin, the garrison surrendered. As was usual the walls were left breached after this siege, but the Berkeley family were allowed to retain ownership on condition that they never repair the damage to the keep and outer bailey. According to the Pevsner Architectural Guides the breach is partially filled by a subsequent 'modern' rebuild, but this only amounts to a low garden wall, to stop people falling 28 feet from the Keep Garden, the original Castle's "motte".
In the early 18th century the 4th Earl of Berkeley planted a pine that was reputed to have been grown from a cutting taken from a tree at the Battle of Culloden. Between 1748 and 1753 the church tower of St Mary's, Berkeley, was demolished and rebuilt beside the church so that it would not impede the clear line of fire from the castle. In the early 20th century the 8th Earl of Berkeley repaired and remodelled parts of the castle and added a new porch in the same Gothic style as the rest of the building.
A restoration appeal was launched in 2006 to raise £5.5 million needed to renovate and restore the Norman building. The castle is the third-oldest continuously occupied castle in England, after the royal fortresses of the Tower of London and Windsor Castle, and the oldest to be continuously family-owned and occupied. It contains an antique four-poster bed that has been identified as the piece of furniture remaining longest in continuous use in the Great Britain by the same family.Ben Rankin, "Bed that dates back to medieval times is oldest still in use in Britain" , Daily Mirror, 6 March 2013. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
The Berkeley Castle Charitable Trust received a grant from the Cotswolds LEADER Programme in 2022; the funds were used to help renovate the Education Room.
The castle is featured in an episode of the 2017 season of the genealogy documentary television series Who Do You Think You Are?, when American actress Courteney Cox learnt of her ancestry. Cox was informed that she is a 21-generation direct descendant of Thomas de Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley and 22-generation descendant of Lord Berkeley's father-in-law, Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, also learning of their parts in the murder of Edward II in 1327. The Castle's website lists additional productions which have completed some filming there.
Two Royal Navy ships have been named Berkeley Castle after the Earls of Berkeley, as was a Great Western Railway 4073 Class steam locomotive.
(2026). 9780300097337, Pevsner Architectural Guides. ISBN 9780300097337
In modern culture
Berkeley Castle was used for many scenes for the 2003 television film of The Other Boleyn Girl. More recently the castle and grounds have been used for the external shots of the Valencian castle in Galavant. In 2019, the castle – both interior and exterior – was used as a filming location for Season 2 of The Spanish Princess.
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Categories: Berkeley, Gloucestershire, Houses In Gloucestershire, Castles In Gloucestershire, Gardens In Gloucestershire, Motte-and-bailey Castles, Grade I Listed Buildings In Gloucestershire, Historic House Museums In Gloucestershire, Butterfly Houses, Grade Ii* Listed Parks And Gardens In Gloucestershire
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