Features: town, church and castle.

Evidence of the earliest settlement at Berkeley is found in the remains of an iron-age fortified village to the south of the town at Bevington. Subsequent settelments were established closer to the present day site on an island of red sandstone rising from the great flood plain of the River Severn. The Roman occupation of the site is attested to by remains uncovered near the centre of modern-day Berkeley, by the layout of the roads, and by fragments found at the church, suggestive of the site having possibly been used for the location of a temple. In historical time, the site was occupied by a religious community, and latterly, from the time of the Norman conquest, it has been the location of one of England's most ancient feudal fortresses. This castle, famous as the place at which Edward II was murdered in 1307, was beseiged by Parlimentary forces in 1645 and reduced to a defenceless condition. Remaining thus, as a non-combatant, it has managed to survive otherwise intact until the present day. The manor of Berkeley, at the turn of the 20th Century embraced thirty or so parishes and was one of the largest in the kingdom.

Berkeley Castle Notes and Pictures - a sketch history of the castle with contemporary images.

Berkeley Links

The town

Chartered by Edward I, the town of Berkeley prospered as a busy port, shipping coal, limestone and timber from the forest, wine, oil and salt, cheese, cider, wool, gloves and the products of the local milling and weaving industries, and having a share in the rich colonial trade which was based at Bristol, just downriver. Note that the cheese now known as Double Gloucester was also known as Double Berkeley since the town was a principal source of supply.

In the seventeenth century a group of merchants and gentlemen from the local area,amongst them John Smith, Richard Berkeley and George Thorpe of Wanswell Court, formed what became known as the Berkeley Company, which sent travellers aboard the ship Margaret, to establish a settlement in the New World. They landed and built a community called Berkeley at the mouth of the James River in Virginia which is recorded as having celebrated Thanksgiving in 1619, a year before the group known as the Pilgrim Fathers dropped anchor.

One of the town's more famous sons is Dr. Edward Jenner, famed worldwide for having carried out the first vaccination and starting the process which, in succeeding generations led to the worldwide programme carried out under the guidance of the World Health Organisation for the eventual erradication in 1980 of smallpox.

Born in Berkeley on 17th May 1749, Edward Jenner attended school in Wotton Under Edge and Cirencester, and became apprenticed to a Mr Daniel Ludlow at nearby Chipping Sodbury. It was at Chipping Sodbury that he first received intelligence of the local belief that a person who caught cowpox, a disease affecting the udders of cows, was provided with protection against smallpox. In May 1796 Jenner innoculated James Phipps, an eight year old boy, with cowpox lymph, and when the boy had developed, and recovered from, the disease, tested his theory by attempting to infect the boy with smallpox. The disease did not develop and the practice of vaccination was begun.

Monuments to Dr. Jenner, who died in 1823 and was buried in St. Mary's church, Berkeley, may be found all over the world. The greatest monument however, has to be the declaration in 1980 that the world was smapllpox free.

Berkeley's history is of considerably more significance than can be expressed here in just a few short lines. You may be interested to discover that the castle, and the Jenner Museum, are both open to visitors throughout the summer months. Come and visit.

View a panorama of the town taken from the top of the tower on April 24th 1999.

The Church