Qualla: Siege of Bridgwater (1645)

Siege of Bridgwater (1645): Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sir Thomas Fairfax brought his New Model Army to the walls of Bridgwater on 13 July 1645. The walls were not the problem. The problem was a five-and-a-half-metre moat, filled fresh at every tide because it connected directly to the sea, and a Royalist garrison of 1,800 well-supplied men dug into earthworks bristling with forty guns. The first night attack failed when the scaling ladders proved too short to reach the walls from the bottom of the moat. Eight days later, in the pre-dawn dark of Monday 21 July, 1,200 Parliamentarian soldiers chosen by lot crossed the River Parrett on pontoon bridges under heavy artillery cover. By Wednesday afternoon the town was a smoking ruin and the garrison had surrendered.

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Siege of Bridgwater (1645): After Naseby

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 3.0. The strategic picture in early summer 1645 was clear: the New Model Army had crushed Prince Rupert at Naseby on 14 June, and Lord Goring's Western Army was the last significant Royalist field force in the country. Fairfax pursued Goring into Somerset, linked up with Edward Massey...

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Siege of Bridgwater (1645): The Clubmen

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before he could besiege the town, Fairfax had to handle the Clubmen. These were local militia bands, often armed only with cudgels, who had organised across the West Country in self-defence against both armies. Many were hostile to whichever side had last requisitioned their food...

Image: NordNordWest | CC BY-SA 3.0

Siege of Bridgwater (1645): The Moat That Defeated the Ladders

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bridgwater straddled the River Parrett, with the main defences on the western bank including the old Bridgwater Castle - abandoned in the mid-16th century but with outer walls that, while not designed for artillery warfare, still presented serious obstacles. Wyndham's engineers h...

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Siege of Bridgwater (1645): Pontoon Bridges at Two in the Morning

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 3.0. On Monday 21 July, twelve hundred men were selected by lot - a deliberately random pick rather than ordering specific regiments forward into what everyone knew would be deadly work. They divided into a main party of 600 and two smaller parties of 400 and 200. At 2:00 a.m. Massey'...

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Siege of Bridgwater (1645): The Town That Burned

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 3.0. Much of the eastern section caught fire during the assault. Accounts vary as to who was responsible - whether the Royalist defenders set blazes to slow the attackers, or whether Parliamentarian incendiaries spread accidentally, or both. The garrison refused terms. A second assaul...

Image: NordNordWest | CC BY-SA 3.0

Siege of Bridgwater (1645): What Was Lost

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the etiquette of seventeenth-century siege warfare, a garrison that surrendered before its walls were breached was supposed to march out with possessions and a free pass to friendly territory. Bridgwater did not receive that courtesy. Most of the 1,500 rank-and-file soldiers s...

Image: NordNordWest | CC BY-SA 3.0