Berkeley Castle Berkeley Castle increases on the low hill around the corner from the Severn estuary. The castle is definitely an appealing mixture of Norman fortress and then medieval mansion, still remarkably unspoilt despite its continuous occupation by an aristocratic family, who may have been likely to rebuild or drastically modernize it in additional recent centuries. The motte and bailey layout may return to William Fitz Osbern, however the earliest masonry this is actually the unusual keep. Whether it dates from Henry II's contract with Robert Fitz Harding, about 1155, then your three semi-circular projecting bastions are remarkably early, although the plinth and pilaster buttresses are in line with that date. Among the bastions consists of a properly chamber and the other created the apse of the chapel. The keep goes towards the spend keep type nevertheless its high wall really encases the motte rather than rising in the summit. An element obtained from the tower keeps from the period, may be the forefront building. It is really an afterthought, attaching a narrow staircase that ascends towards the keep entrance. An in-depth breach within the keep wall, facing the outer bailey, may be the only damage wrought through the Roundheads carrying out a brief siege in 1645. The oblong Thorpe Tower beside it dates in the fourteenth century. The keep is infamous for that murder of Edward II by his jailers, Mister John Maltravers and Mister Thomas Gurney, in 1327. Based on tradition, the deed was completed in the chamber over the forebuilding. Edward have been delivered to Berkely for safety following his abdication, but dethroned monarchs rarely remain alive for lengthy. The keep was between two baileys. Merely a restored gatehouse survives in the outer bailey however the inner continues to be intact. It's arrived at using a fourteenth century gateway flanked on one for reds through the keep and on the other hand with a narrow, oblong tower.