Berry Pomeroy Castle, a Tudor mansion within the walls of an earlier castle, is near the village of

Berry Pomeroy Berry Pomeroy is a village and civil parish in the South Hams district of Devon, England, east of the town of Totnes. The parish is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Ipplepen, Marldon, Torbay (unitary authority), Stoke Gabri ...

, in South

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, England. It was built in the late 15th century by the Pomeroy family which had held the land since the 11th century. By 1547 the family was in financial difficulties and sold the lands to

Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset (150022 January 1552) (also 1st Earl of Hertford, 1st Viscount Beauchamp), also known as Edward Semel, was the eldest surviving brother of Queen Jane Seymour (d. 1537), the third wife of King Henry VI ...

. Apart from a short period of forfeit to the Crown after Edward's execution, the castle has remained in the Seymour family ever since, although it was abandoned in the late 17th century when the fourth baronet moved to Wiltshire. After lying in ruins for a hundred years, in the 19th century the castle became celebrated as an example of the "

picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

", and it became a popular tourist attraction, a status which it retains today—aided by its reputation of being haunted. Between 1980 and 1996 the castle was subjected to extensive archaeological excavations that clarified much of its history and overturned beliefs regarding its age and cause of destruction.

Location

Berry Pomeroy Castle is located about a mile north-east of the village of

in South Devon. It occupies a limestone outcrop that overlooks the deep, wooded, narrow valley of the Gatcombe Brook.

History

The Pomeroys

The de la Pomeroy family held the large

feudal barony of Berry Pomeroy The Feudal Barony of Berry Pomeroy was one of eight feudal baronies in Devonshire, England, which existed during the mediaeval era. It had its ''caput'' at the manor of Berry Pomeroy, 20 miles south of the City of Exeter and 2 miles east of the ...

from shortly after the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

of England, as the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086 records. Early documents refer to a "capital

messuage In law, conveyancing is the transfer of legal title of real property from one person to another, or the granting of an encumbrance such as a mortgage or a lien. A typical conveyancing transaction has two major phases: the exchange of contracts ...

" at Berry, signifying the ''

caput Latin words and phrases {{Short pages monitor