Buried in a wooded valley of South Devon, Berry Pomeroy is a double and haunted place: a medieval fortress of the Pomeroys, within whose enclosure the Seymours raised, in Elizabethan times, a vast house of prestige. The spectacular ruin that results superimposes two ages of architecture — and feeds the legends.
From the Pomeroys to the Seymours
The castle was built in the late fifteenth century by the Pomeroy family, with its gatehouse with gun embrasures. But its destiny turned in 1547, when Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset — Lord Protector of the realm during the minority of Edward VI, and brother of Queen Jane Seymour — acquired it. Somerset was beheaded in 1552, but his descendants kept the estate and undertook to transform it.
An Elizabethan mansion within the enclosure
Rather than raze the old fortress, the Seymours grafted onto it, around 1560-1580, a great four-storey Elizabethan mansion, raised within the very medieval enclosure, with a north wing added around 1600. This superimposition — a Renaissance house raised within the walls of a feudal castle — is striking: it shows, in a single place, the passage from fortress to house of prestige. The mansion, never finished, fell into ruin as early as the seventeenth century. To see: the four-storey shell of the Elizabethan mansion, the gatehouse with gun embrasures (late fifteenth century), St Margaret's Tower, and the wall painting of the Adoration of the Magi (1490-1500) in the gatehouse.
Did you know?
Berry Pomeroy is reckoned one of the most haunted castles in England: the legend of the 'White Lady' and the 'Blue Lady' has for generations drawn seekers of thrills. These tales are not historical facts, but they say something true of the place: a ruin drowned in the woods, half swallowed by vegetation, where the superimposition of an unfinished mansion on an abandoned fortress composes a setting made for the imagination.
Notes
Berry Pomeroy Castle lies at the village of Berry Pomeroy, South Devon; a ruin run by English Heritage, open to visits. Seasonal hours to check.
Quiz
- Who bought Berry Pomeroy in 1547?
- Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset
- Walter Raleigh
- Henry VIII
- What did the Seymours raise within the medieval enclosure?
- A great four-storey Elizabethan mansion
- A cathedral
- An artillery fort
- What is Berry Pomeroy famous for in folklore?
- Its ghosts (White/Blue Lady)
- A pirates' hoard
- A naval battle