The Castle at Berry Pomeroy

Berry Pomeroy castle is located about a mile north-east of the village of Berry Pomeroy,  about 6 miles from Totnes in the Hundred of Kerswell . 

 It lies on a wooded north-facing slope overlooking a deep, narrow, limestone gorge with a mill & nearby, a barton farm.

.For several centuries the barons of Berry Pomeroy  seem to have occupied an unfortified manor house  and, a mile away, had a hunting lodge  within an enclosed deer park  which a large stone gatehouse.

The Pomeroy family owned the manor of ‘Beri’ for over 400 years before they built a castle .The manor, with others, was granted to the Norman knight Ranulph de la Pomeroy by William the Conqueror in 1066
Later they adapted the hunting lodge into a unfortified manor house and then some time around the C13th built a gatehouse and protective  wall. There are  the remnants of very late 15th-century wall-painting in the castle gatehouse.   

 I wonder if the occasional enlargements to the  unfortified manor house  was altered over time until, in the C15th, they  decided to build a castle , possibly  in the mid 1470's. 
Some 20 years later they a castle with a gatehouse  with three towers  around a central courtyard protected by curtain walls.
The earliest documentary reference to a castle on the site is 1496 in the accounting of the Pomeroy property after the death of Sir Richard.
It  thought to be one of the last private castles built in England and was particularly  defensive, apparently intended to repel an attack using artillery.  The corner towers and gatehouse all have gun-ports at basement level giving a continuous line of fire along the defensive dry moat.

Building a castle was expensive and the Baron accrued considerable debts, then a hefty mortgage .
At least two of the barons Pomeroy must have used up the dowry which their wives brought to the marriage. The 2nd wife of Sir Henry (d 1481) , Anna Camell & Henry's 2nd son , Sir Richard ( d 1496) 2nd wife, Lady Elizabeth Densill,  were extremely wealthy widowed ladies with handsome dowries.

By 1547 the debt was unsustainable and, no doubt with some 'encouragement' from the recently elevated, & self appointed,  Duke of Somerset ,Edward Seymour, Lord Protector of England persuaded the last Baron Pomeroy , Sir Thomas , to sell the castle, the estates and all the lands for the sum of £4,000. They had owned the castle for less than 100 years and by selling the barony the Baronial Pomeroys became mere land owning gentry. 

More about the castle here- English Heritage 

Berry Pomeroy village  Conservation Area PDF can be found here

This is an example of a  Norman Hall House and this may be what Berry Pomeroy looked like before the castle was built  around the time of the Wars of the Roses

Until the1990's the assumption was that Berry Pomeroy  was a Norman castle. However archeology has now show that , apart from the gate house and the curtain wall , the castle was built on new ground.

 
The inner Elizabethan House is post the Pomeroy family was built by the Seymours  after 1547. 

 
The Pomeroy  residence  seems to have began as a hunting lodge which was developed over time into a Hall House , with an upper inner chamber for the Lord of the Manor, sitting within an enclosed deer park.

The site is certainly a beautiful one with a wide vista looking across the lush landscape of fields,  woodlands and hills  ...as you can see above ....the remains of the castle are now hidden in the trees .


Above  the village, high on a hill,  is a circular wooded mound, called Rypen Clump . AJP wonders whether or not this might have been an iron age or early Norman fortified dwelling BUT although the field below has  what appears to be marks of lost buildings - this tump was  apparently a lime kilns.

The first time a castle is mentioned is in 1496  when Sir Richard Pomeroy died .
The document mentions two residences, the castle and a separate manor house belonging to the Pomeroys.

On 24 August 1496  he is recorded as being seized of the honour and castle & manor of Bury Pomeroy worth £133 6s 10d, a moiety of Harberton and a messuage;  40 acres land, 10 acres of meadow worth 45s; a moiety of the manor of Brixham worth £14 6s 6d; the manor of Bridgetown Pomeroy worth £24.4s.5d; a messuage with 20 acres of land 7 acres of meadow and 10 acres of underwood in Sandridge (Stoke Gabriel) held by the Bishop of Exeter; 3 messuages  with 40 acres of land 1 acre of meadow ay Wylle in Sandridge, worth 32s all tenure by knights fee. His income was therefore around £175 a year – a considerable sum in the C15th equivalent to more than  £16,550.00 today.

Widow Elizabeth had the income from all the lands except Bury Pomeroy and Harberton ( that went to the still  under age son & heir  Edward .   Before the end of that year she received in dower 1/3 of the honour of Bury Pomeroy castle and apparently the use of rooms therein. She had use of a great chamber beyond the castle gate with the cellar on the left of the gate, two chambers associated with said great chamber, a kitchen, a larder and another room close to the kitchen.

She also had  1/3 of a messuages in the manor of Bury ; a pantry and buttery all the chambers beyond and under the buttery up to the chamber called the ‘Stuerdischamber’ a moity or share of the bakehouse, brudhouses ( breadhouse or possibly brewhouse) kytchen  and lardehouse (storage larder?) a stable for horses with a loft over  an barn , Barle Barne ( Barley Barn) and a house called KyrtelybarneWidow Elizabeth  also had a third of the lands of the manor of Bury some meadows , herbage of a wood ,a common and a mill, a few cottages ,various rents and a third of the park of Bury with its deer. 

She also  had 1/3 of  lands and tenements of the barton ( home farm) of Bury manor  with lands , closes, called Canell Parke. Mokeswode, Mokeswood) Penpark Brodemoor, Southslade, and a garden called Maderhay Kyrtelshay, with a new garden called ‘a erber yn the Lyghtherne’  an arbor in the lightherne - thus far I have not discovered the meaning of lyththerne the only word Ive found is OE -hyme  - meaning corner  

She also had a 1/3 share of Harberton manor  with 30 acres of land and  a 1/3 part of all the services and rents