Qualla: Berry Pomeroy Castle

Berry Pomeroy Castle: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The first sight of Berry Pomeroy Castle is meant to be slow. A narrow wooded drive winds through the trees and then opens, almost theatrically, on a limestone outcrop above the deep narrow valley of the Gatcombe Brook. The gatehouse comes first, late fifteenth-century and pierced with gun ports, with St. Margaret's Tower beside it. Behind that, taller and roofless, rises the shell of a Tudor mansion that was never quite finished and never quite lived in. Jackdaws nest in the high windows. Ivy held the place together for two hundred years. It is, by English Heritage's own description, "reputed to be one of the most haunted castles in Britain," and even if you do not believe in ghosts, you can see exactly why people have always wanted to.

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Image: Public domain

Berry Pomeroy Castle: Lords of the Deer Park

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 3.0. The de la Pomeroy family had held the feudal barony here since shortly after the Norman Conquest, with a presence on the rolls of the Domesday Book of 1086. Their barony was substantial, almost thirty-two knight's fees by 1166, each roughly equivalent to a manor. Henry Pomeroy en...

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 3.0

Berry Pomeroy Castle: The Hidden Magi

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Smalljim, CC BY 3.0. There is one extraordinary survival from the Pomeroy years. In 1978, hidden behind a thick mat of vegetation in the upper storey of the gatehouse, conservators uncovered a wall painting. Even faint and weather-eaten, the subject was identifiable: an Adoration of the Magi, dated o...

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Image: Smalljim | CC BY 3.0

Berry Pomeroy Castle: The Seymours Take Over

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Roger A Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1547, Sir Thomas Pomeroy sold up. The buyer was Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector to the boy-king Edward VI and effectively ruler of England. He may never even have visited his new Devon property. Five years later, he was beheaded for treason and the lands f...

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Image: Roger A Smith | CC BY-SA 2.0

Berry Pomeroy Castle: A Splendid Glory in the Dust

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Dibb, CC BY-SA 2.0. The 4th Baronet, Sir Edward Seymour, was already fifty-five when he inherited. He had been a serious politician, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1673, and he had also inherited Bradley House in Wiltshire, which was closer to London. He chose Wiltshire. Berry Pomeroy was prob...

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Image: Michael Dibb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Berry Pomeroy Castle: The White Lady and the Blue

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Gunns, CC BY-SA 2.0. By the late eighteenth century, the picturesque movement had discovered that ruins were beautiful. Berry Pomeroy, by then the haunt of jackdaws and tangled with ivy, fit the mood exactly, and visitors began to come. Around 1830 the Duke of Somerset paid for some of the crumbling ...

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Image: Chris Gunns | CC BY-SA 2.0