Beverston Castle, Including Gazebo And Bridge

Beverston Castle is a ruined fortified manor house with an adjoining house, a small gazebo, and a bridge spanning the moat. The castle was built around 1225 by Maurice de Gaunt as a rectangular courtyard with corner drum towers and moat, of which only the west and south sides remain, with an additional outer moat now blocked in. Thomas, the 3rd Lord of Berkeley, enlarged the castle around 1350 to 1360, adding a gatehouse and other works. The north-west tower was altered in the 15th century. The Hicks family added a domestic range on the south side, probably in the early 17th century, on the site of a former Great Hall, and this was remodelled around 1691 after a fire. The bridge and possibly the gazebo date to the 18th century. The castle was besieged twice in 1644 and suffered considerable damage.

The buildings are constructed of random rubble stone, partly dressed, with stone slate roofs. Large stone stacks are present, including an external stack on the north side and a lateral stack with three diagonally set square flues with moulded cornice, also on the north side. A square stone flue from 16th-century fireplaces in the west range originally probably had a decorative cap.

The west range, the only remaining structure from the 13th-century castle, features a four-bay chamfered quadripartite rib vault undercroft, originally with a single great chamber above, which now has blocked windows to the west and partial remains of inner corner stair towers. The south-west corner was greatly altered by Thomas Berkeley, who added a new embattled tower containing a chapel on the first floor and a chamber above with squints into an adjoining private oratory that formerly had a rose window, now filled in around a single stone-framed light. A slightly later circular stair tower with some of the original wood newel stair still surviving is also present. The chapel contains a fine tierceron vault with carved stone bosses, a pair of richly carved sedilia with crocketed ogee arches and pinnacles, a trefoil piscina with credence shelf, and fragments of coloured plaster. The traceried remains of the east window match the east window in the nearby Church of St Mary.

The north-west tower was formed into a square probably in the 15th century, with chambers on each upper floor having a fireplace and garderobe. A third storey was added over the great chamber in the 15th or 16th century, and large moulded fireplaces were inserted, the upper one now above the existing roof level. A twentieth-century lean-to kitchen on the inner side of the west range has arched openings into the undercroft.

The south range is of two storeys and an attic with a hipped east end, built on a chamfered plinth. It contains nine windows with two-light stone mullions and transoms with deep hollow moulding, though two bays to the left have a wide flat section to the mullion and transom with shallower hollow moulding. A continuous dripmould runs over similar ground floor windows, with an ovolo-moulded Tudor archway in bay six and a twentieth-century glazed door. Two end windows to the right on the ground floor have been lengthened, and the second window from the end above is blind. All windows are leaded casements with relieving arches to all ground floor windows. The interior of the south range contains a large early 17th-century chamfered stone fireplace in the external stack, chamfered and stopped beams on the ground floor, a large three-tier oak newel framed stair with flat newel posts, a moulded wide handrail and widely spaced turned balusters, and a timber-framed attic storey.

The small square gazebo is situated at the west end of the south terrace and is built of rubble stone with a pyramidal stone slate roof topped with a ball finial. It has a small window to the south and a blocked opening to the east, with a twentieth-century door on the north side giving access to a single small room. Below the gazebo is access into the moat.

The bridge spans the moat from the south terrace in thin coursed stone, with a central almost ogee-pointed arch, providing a pathway about one metre wide with flanking iron balustrades.

Beverston Castle is designated as an Ancient Monument, Gloucestershire 75.