Berry Pomeroy Castle

Berry Pomeroy

The castle is often suggested as a thirteenth century fortress on the grounds of it having a twin towered gatehouse and a D shaped tower in an older enceinte than the Tudor house behind it. However there is no structural element in either gatehouse, curtain or tower that appears to be pre fifteenth century. This is despite the fact that the owning family, the Pomeroys, were established in Somerset and Devon since before 1075. In 1102 William Pomeroy (d.bef.1114) had granted St Peter's of Gloucester his Devonshire Domesday vill of Berry Pomeroy (Bery). This in itself rather indicates that there was a not a castle here at that date nor for a long time afterwards. The Pomeroy castle of 1170 is quite clearly Chateau Ganne in Normandy and not Berry Pomeroy in Devon. Similarly on the death of Henry Pomery in 1281 and his son in 1305, Berry Pomerey was simply a manor and no castle was mentioned.

The castle is thought to have been late fifteenth century in conception. It was first mentioned in 1496 and presumably had not been long built at that date. The castle left the Pomeroys in 1547 when Thomas Pomery sold it to Duke Edward Seymour of Somerset who rebuilt the rear of the castle as a 4 storey sumptuous mansion. This was later extended by Edward's son, another Edward, who carried the mansion beyond the castle defences. The castle itself was abandoned and fell into ruin between 1688 and 1701.

Description
The fifteenth century castle consisted of a rectangular courtyard with D shaped towers and the twin octagonal towered gatehouse at the angles. The ground floors were all equipped for artillery defence. In style the gatehouse's closest comparison is that of Raglan castle in Gwent. In 1978 restoration of the gatehouse recovered a wall painting of the Adoration of the Magi in the top storey of the gatehouse. This could well date to the castle's construction in the late fifteenth century.

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