Bridgwater Castle

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The mansion that was built in place of the donjon (mid-18th century)

Bridgwater Castle is an Outbound castle in the town of Bridgwater in the English county of Somerset .

history

Early history

The powerful official and Baron William Brewer had the castle built from 1202 as the center of his rule Bridgwater, which King John Ohneland had given him as a fief in 1201. To this end, he founded the Bridgwater Priory . Before the castle was built, Bridgwater was much smaller, but the charter that gave permission to build a castle was soon followed by King John's charter to establish a borough and one to make it a market . This is how the center of the new city came into being. Bridgwater initially had to face competition from the nearby Downend harbor , but the new settlement soon dominated.

William Brewer died in 1226 and his son of the same name William Brewer in 1232. After his childless death, the castle fell to the Crown the following year and then served as a warehouse and prison. In 1242 repairs were commissioned to the Motte and in 1246 to the towers. In 1248 the castle fell to Maud de Braose, Baroness Mortimer , the wife of Roger Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer . The castle played a role in the Second Barons' War .

In the Despenser War of 1321, King Edward II led a campaign against the Mortimers, then a potentially rebellious family of Marcher Lords . After a brief war, the Crown occupied Bridgwater Castle until 1326 so that Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March could not use the castle as a base of operations if he escaped from custody or returned from exile in France . Roger Mortimer returned from France with Edward's wife Isabelle . When Eduard and Isabelle had ascended the throne, they gave the castle back to the Mortimers, who neglected the maintenance and had the moat partially filled in. Only the St Mark's chapel and a barn were repaired until the towers, gatehouse and barbican were also strengthened again in the 1380s and 1390s . By 1450 private houses had been built within the castle walls and the military value of the fortress waned.

Civil War and Monmouth Rebellion

A lithograph of Bridgwater Castle by John Chubb (1746-1818)

In the early 1630s, the then owner of Bridgwater Castle, Henry Harvey , had part of the outer walls torn down. In 1642, however, the English Civil War broke out and the castle and town were still considered of military value. The royalists established a garrison under Colonel Sir Francis Wyndham , a personal acquaintance of King Charles I Wyndham's wife, Lady Crystabella Wyndham , fired a musket shot at Oliver Cromwell , but missed him and instead killed his aide-de-camp . Later, when many buildings in the city had been destroyed, they surrendered and handed the castle and its valuable contents to the parliamentarians on July 21, 1645 . The castle itself was razed the following year . Colonel Wyndham arranged for King Charles II to flee to France in 1651 after the Battle of Worcester . Even though Robert Blake was born in Bridgwater and became one of the principal commanders of the Commonwealth of England and one of the most famous English admirals, it is not believed that he was involved in the fighting for the city.

In the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, the rebel forces were trapped in Bridgwater on July 3rd and were supposed to fortify the city before the Battle of Sedgemoor .

Rebuilding the site

King's Square: The castle grounds today

At the end of the 17th century, John Harvey had a mansion built on the highest point of the castle grounds. The rest of the property was bought by James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos , who built an industrial area in the city.

Most of the site was built on in the 1720s, creating the Georgian Castle Street . Parts of the castle wall, the water gate and the cellar rooms of the castle have been preserved to this day. The mansion was later demolished and King's Square was built on the site .

Recent history

In 2008, during renovation work on the city's sewer system, part of the curtain wall and a tunnel for transporting goods up from the port were discovered.

architecture

Bridgwater Castle was a large complex of Old Red sandstone that covered an area of ​​3.2-3.6 hectares. A moat fed by the estuary , which was up to 20 meters wide in places, led along today's Fore Street and Castle Moat and from Northgate to Chandos Street . The trench was filled by Durleigh Brook , a branch of the River Parrett .

Unusually, the main entrance across from Cornhill was built with a pair of attached gates and a drawbridge . In addition to the donjon , which was located in the southeast corner of what is now King's Square, the castle had a dungeon , a chapel , stables and a bell tower , as documents show. The river crossing could be controlled from the castle, which was built on the only hill in the city. A four-meter-thick section of the castle wall and the water gate, which are listed as Grade II * historic buildings by English Heritage , can be seen on West Quay , the remains of a wall of a building on Queen Street, presumably built within the castle walls . The foundations of the tower that formed the northeast corner of the castle now lie under the Homecastle House .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Bridgwater Castle . The Gatehouse. Retrieved December 21, 2015.
  2. ^ Nigel Pounds: The Medieval Castle in England and Wales . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994. p. 151.
  3. ↑ Grahame Farr: Somerset Harbors . Christopher Johnson. London 1954. pp. 101-116.
  4. ↑ Franciscan Friary and later mansion, Bridgwater . In: Somerset Historic Environment Record . Somerset County Council. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 21, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / webapp1.somerset.gov.uk
  5. ↑ Clare Gathercole: Bridgwater archaeological survey (PDF) Somerset County Council. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 17, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.somerset.gov.uk
  6. ↑ Lornie Leete-Hodge: Curiosities of Somerset . Bossiney Books, Bodmin 1985. ISBN 0-906456-98-3 . P. 75.
  7. ^ OH Creighton: Castles and Landscapes . Equinox, London 2002. p. 154.
  8. ↑ Bridgwater Castle, Bridgwater . In: Somerset Historic Environment Record . Somerset County Council. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. 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 21, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / webapp1.somerset.gov.uk
  9. ↑ a b c d e Robert Dunning: Somerset Castles . Somerset Books, Tiverton 1995. ISBN 978-0-86183-278-1 . Pp. 28-30.
  10. ^ The English Civil War . Bridgwater Somerset. Archived from the original on March 5, 2010. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 13, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bridgwatersomerset.info
  11. ↑ Robin Bush: Somerset: The Complete Guide . Dovecote Press, Wimborne 1994. ISBN 1-874336-26-1 . Pp. 41-44.
  12. ^ Rebels return to Bridgwater . Somerset timeline. Archived from the original on October 4, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 26, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.somersettimeline.org.uk
  13. ^ Bridgewater Castle and the Battle of Sedgemoor . United Kingdom Tourist Information. Archived from the original on March 27, 2012. 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 July 17, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uktourist.tv
  14. ↑ RW Dunning: Bridgwater Castle . In: A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 6: Andersfield, Cannington, and North Petherton Hundreds . British History Online. Retrieved December 21, 2015.
  15. ↑ Local History . Lower Lakes. Retrieved July 17, 2011.
  16. ↑ a b Castle wall to the rear of Nos 10 to 14 (consec) Water Gate . In: Images of England . English Heritage. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 21, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.imagesofengland.org.uk
  17. ↑ James Beal: "Outstanding" smugglers tunnel unearthed beneath Castle Street . In: Bridgwater mercury , March 10, 2008. Retrieved December 21, 2015. 
  18. ^ Bridgwater Castle . Bridgwater.net. Archived from the original on May 15, 2008. 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 21, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bridgwater.net
  19. ^ Bridgwater Castle . In: Pastscape National Monument Record . English Heritage. Retrieved December 21, 2015.
  20. ^ Bridgwater Castle Trail . Bridgwater Town Web. Archived from the original on May 24, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 21, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bridgwater.net

literature

  • Plantagenet Somerset Fry: The David & Charles Book of Castles . David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1980. ISBN 0-7153-7976-3

Web links

Commons : Bridgwater Castle  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 8 ′ 6.7 ″  N , 2 ° 59 ′ 56.4 ″  W.