Berry Pomeroy Castle, Devon

Berry Pomeroy was built in the late 15th Century by an old Devon family the Pomeroys, to the latest designs incorporating embrasures to fire guns and arquebuses along the moat.  The surprise is why Henry VII allowed such advanced private foritfications.  The Gatehouse seen on the left dates from the late 15th Century Castle period.

In 1547 Edward Seymour, 'Protector Somerset' of Edward VI acquired the Pomeroy's Castle as part of his massive acquisitions of property.  It is unlikely that he ever visited the property before his fall in 1549.  However when his son Sir Edward Seymour eventually succeeded in securing title to the property in 1558, he set about modernising it in the most modern style.  The four storey Elisabethan House seen on the right was his.

His son another Sir Edward, built around 1600 another massive wing - not  visible here - with an Italian style loggia.  The house flourished throughout the 17th Century as the Seymours were prominent office holders in Devon under Charles I and II.  They managed to hold onto the House by the skin of their teeth under the Commonwealth.

It was after the Edward Seymour the 3rd Baronet died in 1688, that the House fell into ruin.  The 4th Baronet was a prominent politician and Speaker of the House and needed a seat closer to London.  So around 1700 Berry Pomeroy was stripped of its timbers and furniture and allowed to fall into picturesque ruins.

A trace of the Tudor Empire perhaps?