Berkeley Castle began as a motte-and-bailey castle around 1067. Robert Fitzharding received a royal charter from Henry II in 1153 or 1154 to rebuild it, and he built the circular shell keep between 1153 and 1156. Thomas de Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley, did much of the fourteenth-century work, including Thorpe's Tower and the inner gatehouse.
In 1327 Edward II was held here for about five months and, traditionally, murdered on 21 September. The castle still has his cell and a dungeon 36 feet (11 meters) deep. Parliamentarian forces captured it in 1645.
The article calls it the third-oldest continuously occupied castle in England and the oldest continuously family-owned and occupied. It is the home of the Berkeley family, open to paying visitors from April to November in 2023, and Grade I listed.
Comments