THE SECRETS OF BERKELEY CASTLE
By Margaret Deefholts
(for Travel Writers' Tales )

Entrance courtyard

Berkeley Castle is not one of those Disney-like fairytale castles. Set in the rolling Gloucestershire countryside, it is a brooding hulk of a building, its crenellated battlements rising dramatically against the sky. Despite its forbidding exterior, it has an intriguing history and along with my English relatives Susan and Helen Penn-Berkeley, we are visiting the Castle to explore a Berkeley link within our own family's lineage.

As the three of us follow an entrance pathway that winds between hedges and flower beds, a soft summer breeze carries the scent of wild roses, geraniums and lobelia on its breath. Beyond spreading lawns, an archway takes us into a medieval stone-flagged courtyard where we are dwarfed by the Castle's surrounding walls. The sun throws jagged shadows on the stone-flagged floor and sets the castle's mullioned window panes a-twinkle.

Archway leading into the castle

A group of about five people are gathered around a volunteer docent and we edge to the fringe to listen: “Welcome to Berkeley Castle,” she says. “My name is Julia, and it will be my pleasure to show you around today.”

Julia looks about 50ish, and is well turned out in a black blouse, white Capri pants and sturdy looking sandals. “Welcome to Berkeley Castle” she says, her grey eyes crinkling at the corners. “It dates back to Norman times and has the distinction of being owned by the same family since 1153 when it came into the possession of 3rd Baron, Thomas de Berkeley, 900 years ago. The 6,000 acre estate is now held by his descendent Charles Berkeley.”

Crenellated battlements

Midway through her introduction, she pauses to point to the battlements. “See the breach in the wall there.” I squint against the sunlight. “It was caused by canon fire during the English Civil War in the 1600s. The Berkeley's were allowed to retain ownership of the castle, provided they didn't repair it. And curiously enough that's still enforced today by an Act of Parliament!”

We follow her up a flight of steps, worn and uneven through centuries of use, which brings us into the entrance room – and an introduction to Berkeley Castle's macabre past and its most infamous—and tragic—prisoner, King Edward II.

Julia says: “Although Edward did his royal duty by siring four children by his French-born Queen Isabella, his preference ran to amorous liaisons with court noblemen—affairs that were far from discreet.”

Queen Isabella, in cahoots with her lover Roger Mortimer and the powerful barons of the country, imprisoned Edward in the Castle dungeon—a stink-hole of a place—but eventually moved him to an austere cell (we peer at it through a grille) where the King spent his final days. At Isabella's behest, a gang of paid assassins murdered the 47 year-old King, by ramming a red hot poker up his posterior—the customary punishment for sodomy.

Edward II's dungeon

Julia adds ominously, “It is said that his screams of agony can still be heard echoing through the Castle's walls every September 17th , which is the anniversary of his death in 1327.”

Not all of Berkeley Castle's occupants came to such a grisly end. Quite the reverse. Over the centuries it has played host to royalty, knights and barons. Queen Elizabeth 1st spent a short while here, and her specially woven bedspread is on display in one of the rooms; Sir Francis Drake—a frequent visitor to the Castle—also has his own four-poster bed in a comfortably furnished guest bedroom.

Sir Francis Drake's guest bedroom

Queen Elizabeth I's bedspread

The Castle also has literary associations: “William Shakespeare makes mention of it in “Richard II”,” Julia says, “and his “Midsummer Night's Dream” was intended to be read during a wedding at Berkeley Castle.”

In contrast to its somewhat forbidding exterior, the Castle's interior furnishings are lavish. We pause before oil paintings of English landscapes—including one of Berkeley Castle— peer at medieval tapestries, and marvel at blue Delft crockery and priceless Chinese vases on display in china cabinets.

China cabinet

Dead fly in clock: "Time Flies"

There are curiosities: a miniature house made from butterfly wings, and puzzlingly, a clock with a dead fly on its face—a quirky reminder perhaps that ‘Time Flies'?

Butterfly wings miniature house

Carved wood cabinet

Wood cabinet detail

However, it is an intricately carved wooden cabinet in the Morning Room that catches my eye. It has nude male and female torsos adorning side and centre columns; and miniature human heads as door knobs. A man's face on the central panel stares open-mouthed, his eyes filled with terror; women faces adorn the side panels and their expressions run the gamut from astonished to puzzled. One of them is so lifelike that her sardonic smirk is unsettling.

Mrs. Berkeley Portrait in Givenchy dress

Present owner Charles Berkeley and family.

The Long Drawing Room, and the adjoining Small Drawing Room have personal touches: charming wedding and group photographs of the present Berkeley family. Particularly eye catching is a painting of the current Mrs. Berkeley wearing an elegant Givenchy dress, a three-strand pearl necklace and an enigmatic smile.

Magnificent dining room

The dining room brings gasps of admiration from everyone. Portraits of Berkeley scions in the walls look down at a splendid banquet table elegantly adorned with silver candelabras and vases of roses and peonies. Places are set with Spode china plates, silver cutlery and sparkling wine glasses. The imagination conjures up visions of liveried servants in the wings awaiting the arrival of distinguished guests.

Kitchen

Spider-web design ceiling

The nearby kitchen is spacious and well provisioned: stone jars and gleaming copper pans sit on the shelves, herbs dry out on a side table and, as in all well appointed baronial kitchens, a bell panel to summon staff is situated on an adjacent wall. Huge haunches of venison would have roasted on the spit in front of the enormous open-hearth oven. The adjoining buttery's wood-patterned ceiling has a unique but perplexing design which looks like a large black spider-web.

Great Hall

The Great Hall is the climax of the tour. It is a splendid medieval room with a high ornamental ceiling, and the sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows lends it an air of majesty. It is easy to imagine the grand balls, the lavish performances, the rich banquets and the sound of music and infectious gaiety, the flirtatious glances, whispered secrets, and boisterous gusts of laughter that would have echoed off these walls.

Court Jester in Great Hall

It is, however, also the site of yet another tragedy. Dickie Pierce, England's last Court Jester fell to his death from a balcony in the 14 th century. The jury is out as to whether it was a genuine accident, or if he was pushed. Does his restless ghost mingle with phantom guests on dark and stormy nights?

Berkeley ancestral portraits adorn the walls and Sue, Helen and I pore over a genealogical map of the family members dating back nine centuries. Down the long chain of Berkeley scions, a young Henry Nicholas Lionel Berkeley went to India as an officer in the British-India army in the late 1700s. His daughter Harriet was born in Chunar, (a small British settlement in north India), and it is through her that a connection to the Berkeley clan can be traced in our fanuly's ancestral records.

St Mary's Church: Tomb of Thomas de Berkeley (died 1361) and his wife Katherine

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IF YOU GO:

More Information: https://www.berkeley-castle.com/

Photos by Margaret Deefholts