8o 
PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 
1919 
and provided for there by his appointed Provost, Roger de Berkeley, whose 
office was made an hereditary one, and was retained by his heirs until 1153, 
but again no castle is mentioned. These facts seem to point instead to the 
existence of at least a safe and capacious Manor House at Berkeley, or next it, 
and which gave place but little later to the Castle, where Henry 1 . stayed when 
he spent Easter at Berkeley (1121), and before which Roger (III.) de Berkeley 
was captured in 1146 by Milo’s son, Walter de Hereford, to whom he was 
compelled (by torture) to surrender it “ ante suum (quod in vicino habuerat) 
Castellum. - ’ That Castle was “ Keepless ” and, probably like its fellows of that 
day, was largely built of timber and protected by a deep ditch. This is 
shown by the granting to Robert Fitz Harding of the licence to build a Keep 
by Henry II. in 1154, which is the present cylindrical “ turris ” or keep. The 
licence and seal of the king is still in the Castle. 
There is at Berkeley a special difficulty (owing to its nature) in determining 
dates by masonry 1 as apart from mouldings, and of the latter we have probably 
none of anterior date to Henry II. There are traces of Norman masonry 
together with one Norman shaft and cap in the western end of the great hall, 
and it is possible that a newel or two still secreted within the thickest outer 
walls are of that date. For the rest of the Castle, apart from the keep, is of 
the time of Henry III., Edward III., and later periods ; while its outer bailly 
is practically non-extant above ground since the early eighteenth century. 
Small oil-pictures, however, survive in the Castle which prove that numerous 
buildings had surrounded it. The present outer gate is not ancient ; and the 
original inner one has given way to the present complicated structure which, 
minus portcullis and other features, does duty for it. Meanwhile a great deal 
of 1790 construction figures as an unharmonious adjunctive to the Thorpe 
Tower and elsewhere beyond it. 
One of the specially aggressive and destructive features of these various 
alterations has been the hiding in one case, and total destruction in two (?) 
others, of the semi-circular dungeon-turrets of the keep. For, we should 
picture the keep with at least four of these ; and in some of these were kept 
munitions, and in others prisoners, while one includes still the well and above 
it the Chapel of St. John. 
The family of the Lords in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries lived 
here in the upper keep and used the Chapel of St. John, which we see in front 
of us, for their devotions, while the garrison and official staff and stables 
occupied the building below. Access to the keep was originally by wooden 
stairs to yonder vide Norman door, since 1170 approached by the present 
stone flight within the fore-building. Within the keep two storeys and roof 
were inter-connected by two or perhaps more stone newels, some traces of 
which can well be followed. The arrangements in such keeps were devised so 
as to deceive as much as possible any invader v'ho obtained access, and their 
architects are proven to have seldom repeated their plans. Gradually, with 
greater security, the outer buildings and galleries of timber became translated 
1 The stone is chiefly from Bull rocks near Sharpness, and the puff-stone (yellow) near Dursley. 
