Brampton Bryan Castle
Brampton Bryan Castle is a ruined castle in the village of Brampton Bryan in the north-west corner of the English county of Herefordshire . The castle protected an important route from Ludlow through the River Teme valley to Knighton and central Wales .
Castle grounds
The remains of the castle are listed as Grade I Historic Buildings by English Heritage . The castle was built from locally broken sandstone and stone , which indicates different construction phases. The outer gatehouse , parts of the inner gatehouse, part of the south wall of the kitchen wing and the knight's hall have been preserved to this day . The underground remains of a four-sided castle can also be found on the site.
In the oldest documents about the property, a "tower with a courtyard" is mentioned at this point for the year 1295. It appears that the medieval building, at its best and through different stages of its development, stood on a moth or was surrounded by a moat . The entrance led over a bridge in the south of the complex to a gatehouse in the southern curtain wall . This was a large building and consisted of an inner gatehouse, to which a larger, outer gatehouse - protruding over the curtain wall - was added later. The gatehouse led into a square courtyard, which was surrounded by buildings that connected to the curtain wall. The knight's hall is upstairs in the northern wing of the building and the kitchens were on the east side. The other wings of the building contained the private apartments and probably also ancillary rooms, such as stables for horses and other service rooms that a medieval castle needed.
The leveling of the terrain for a later house with a garden covered the true dimensions of the castle buildings, but it is thought that the steep slope on the north side of the wall of the great hall wing was the northern edge of the original moth.
history
middle Ages
The castle is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, but the exact date of its construction is not known. The first source of a building on this site is from 1295. The year before, the owner, Bryan de Brampton , had died and Robert Harley inherited the castle through marriage to his daughter Margaret . The castle then remained in the hands of the Harley family for almost 700 years. In 1642, during the English Civil War , it was badly damaged.
Civil war
During the civil war, the castle was almost completely destroyed. Sir Robert Harley (1579–1656), a noted Marcher Lord , was a staunch Puritan and also a Member of Parliament. Since his castle was in a county that was mostly on the king's side, an attack on him was particularly likely. Regardless, Robert Harley left the defense of the castle to his wife, Lady Brilliana Harley . Brilliana was the daughter of Sir Edward and Lady Dorothy Conway of Ragley Hall , Warwickshire, and she had become Robert Harley's third wife in March 1624.
Presumably because of its reputation in the area, the castle was not attacked until July 26, 1643, 11 months after Charles I had his royal standard hoisted over Nottingham . Before that, the royalist Sheriff of Hereford , FitzWilliam Coningsby to instruct the tenants of Harley to pay, limited their rent directly to him. Those who refused were imprisoned. As a result, there were attacks on the property and cattle were stolen.
The Harley's support for the parliamentarians can be seen in a series of letters from Lady Brilliana to her son, Sir "Edward Harley": In December 1642 she wrote: "You (my neighbors) are using great violence on me. ”
On July 26, 1643, events escalated and Sir William Vavasour , the newly appointed Governor of Hereford, had Brampton Bryan Castle surrounded by a mixed cavalry and infantry force of around 700 soldiers.
Brilliana Harley and three of her children along with about 50 civilians and 50 soldiers held the castle. Conditions inside quickly deteriorated. Cattle, sheep and horses were stolen, all the buildings in the village were burned to the ground and the castle was attacked with cannons. Fortunately for the defenders in the castle, although the bombardment robbed the castle of its roofs, there were no deaths and few injuries. The attackers fared worse, around ten of whom were killed or injured. The castle siege was lifted on September 9th when the royalists withdrew and joined an attack on Gloucester .
For a few months thereafter, there was an uncertain truce (although this did not prevent Brilliana from sending a force of 40 soldiers to raid a royalist camp in Knighton , Wales), but Brilliana's health deteriorated and died on October 29, 1643 she.
After her death, command of the garrison passed into the hands of the family doctor, Dr. Nathaniel Wright , above, and the royalist troops began a second siege of the castle in the spring of the following year. This siege lasted only three weeks and the royalists, who had reinforced themselves with additional armament, caused much greater damage to the castle with landmines and powerful artillery than the first time. The siege ended when Dr. Wright surrendered to the attacking forces led by Sir Michael Woodhouse , Sir William Vavasour and Sir William Croft . The building was ransacked and set on fire, and the prisoners, including the three young Harley children, were taken to Shrewsbury .
Despite the loss of the castle, Harley's support for the parliamentary cause proved wise and after Oliver Cromwell's victory he was richly rewarded: his compensation was £ 13,000 (2006: over £ 1 million).
Legend has it that the devil romps through the park with Cromwell's soul every September 3rd.
Backdrops for film and television
The siege in the English Civil War was the subject of the documentary Blood on Our Hands on Channel 4 . Brampton Bryan Castle was also the setting for the film Howards End Again .
Individual references and comments
- ↑ a b c d e f g Brampton Bryan Castle . Herefordshire Through Time. Herefordshire Council. Retrieved December 18, 2015.
- ↑ a b Toria Forsyth-Moser: The Siege of Brampton Bryan . Herefordshire County Council. 2003. Archived from the original on December 23, 2015. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 18, 2015.
- ↑ King Charles I had the royal standard hoisted in Nottingham on August 22, 1642.
- ↑ Lady Brilliana Harley: The Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley . Camden Society. 186, 1854. Retrieved December 18, 2015.
- ↑ Antonia Fraser: The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-Century . Phoenix Press 2002. ISBN 978-1-84212-635-6 . Pp. 212-216.
- ↑ a b c Toria Forsyth-Moser: The First Siege (of Brampton Bryan) . Herefordshire County Council. 2003. Archived from the original on December 23, 2015. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 18, 2015.
- ↑ The church, the rectory, 40 houses and the mills of the castle were all burned down.
- ↑ Toria Forsyth-Moser: The Second Siege (of Brampton Bryan) . Herefordshire County Council. 2003b. Archived from the original on December 23, 2015. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 18, 2015.
- ^ Measuring Worth . Retrieved December 18, 2015.
- ↑ Russell Ash: Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain . Reader's Digest Association, 1973. ISBN 978-0-340165-97-3 . P. 310.
- ^ Nancy Banks-Smith: Meet the ancestors . February 11, 2005. Retrieved December 18, 2015.
- ↑ Country Life: Interview, Edward Harley . Retrieved May 11, 2010.
literature
- Plantagenet Somerset Fry: The David & Charles Book of Castles . David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1980. ISBN 0-7153-7976-3 .
- Keith Parker: Radnorshire from Civil War to Restoration . Logaston, Almeley 2000. ISBN 1-873827-86-5 .
- PM Remfry: Brampton Bryan Castle, 1066 to 1309, and Civil War, 1642 to 1646 . SCS, Worcester 1997. ISBN 1-899376-33-X .
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 20 '52.1 " N , 2 ° 55' 34.7" W.