| Brampton Bryan Castle | |
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| Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire, England | |
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Shown within Herefordshire
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| Coordinates | grid reference SO370726 |
| Events | English Civil War |
Brampton Bryan Castle is in the small village of Brampton Bryan in north-western Herefordshire, England, 50m south of the River Teme. The castle guarded an important route from Ludlow along the Teme Valley to Knighton and on into Central Wales.
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The current buildings include the ruined earthwork and buried remains of the quadrangular castle. The medieval layout consisted of four ranges built around a courtyard, with a gatehouse contained within the southern curtain wall, to which a large outer gatehouse was added. The whole was constructed on a motte and surrounded by a moat, with the approach to the castle being from the south across a bridge to the gatehouse.
The north range contained the hall and service bay, both at first floor level, with the kitchen to the east. Private accommodation was found in the other ranges, with further chambers above the gate passage of the inner gatehouse and on the first floor of the outer gatehouse.
The castle is mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086) although the actual date of its foundation remains uncertain.[1] The earliest reference to a building on the site is in 1295. During the previous year the owner Bryan de Brampton had died and Robert Harley inherited the castle through marriage to his daughter Margaret. For almost 700 years since the castle has remained in the Harley family. It was severely damaged in 1642 during the Civil War.[1]
The castle was almost entirely destroyed during the Civil War. At this time Herefordshire was largely a Royalist county but the puritan Harley family supported the Parliamentarians. The Harley family's support for parliament can be seen in a number of Lady Brilliana Harley's letters to her son, Sir Edward Harley - writing in December 1642, Lady Harley writes; "They [my neighbours] are in mighty violence against me." [2] [3]
Sir Robert Harley left the defence of the castle in the hands of his wife, Lady Brilliana Harley. The castle was not attacked until 26 July 1643 when Sir William Vavasour, the newly-appointed Royalist governor of Hereford, surrounded Brampton Bryan with a mixed force of cavalry and infantrymen of about 700 soldiers.
Brilliana and three of her children together with 100 of her tenants (many of them armed) held the castle. Cattle, sheep and horses were plundered, all the buildings in the village were burnt to the ground and the castle was attacked with cannon and shot. Inside the castle casualties were low and only one death and a few injuries are recorded. The attackers fared less well and nearly a tenth of the company were either killed or injured. After seven weeks the siege was lifted and in October Vavasour left to join a Royalist attack on Gloucester.
For some months afterwards an uneasy truce prevailed (although this did not stop Brilliana dispatching 40 troops to raid a Royalist camp at Knighton), however Brilliana's health worsened and she died 29 October 1643.
Following her death the command of the garrison was put in the hands of the family doctor Nathaniel Wright and the Royalist forces began a second siege of the castle in the spring of 1644. This second siege lasted only three weeks and the Royalists reinforced by additional weaponry inflicted much more substantial damage upon the castle with mines and powerful artillery. The siege ended when Dr Wright surrendered to the attacking forces led by Sir Michael Woodhouse, Sir William Vavasour and Sir William Croft. The building was sacked and burnt and the prisoners, including the three young Harley children, were taken to Shrewsbury.
The siege was featured in the Channel Four documentary Blood on Our Hands.