St Briavels


Front entrance to the castle. We were staying in the Constable's Room in the left-hand tower.	This picture is even older, but rather beautiful. It shows what the castle probably looked like a few hundred years ago.	An rather lovely old postcard of St. Briavels, dating from 1906

St Briavel's isn't actually a castle; it's a fortified house, being one of the hunting lodges of King John in the 13th Century. Nevertheless, it is absolutely beautiful, and it does help to explain why it was built in a dip, near the bottom of a hill.

There are no show pictures of St Briavels as it wasn't a show weekend. The Lion Rampant went en masse to St Briavels as a holiday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the group. It was an absolutely wonderful weekend!

Castellarium Anglicanum /	St Briavel's SO558045
D. J. Cathcart King (New York; London: Kraus International, 1983)	"Great twin-tower gatehouse; small octagonal ward with no other flanking; fragments of a small square tower, alleged to have been the keep. First mentioned 1130; much added to 1211 and 1292-3. Early mentions may concern [the damaged ringwork at Castle Tump, Stow Green]." pp. 182-3
Gloucestershire 2: the Vale and the Forest of Dean / Niklaus Pevsner, David Verey and Alan Brooks (New Haven: Yale UP, 2002) [The buildings of England series]	"St Briavels Castle lies south of the church. It is first mentioned, as a royal castle, in 1130. At this date there was no doubt a motte in the southern part of the present enclosure, superseded by a higher stone keep later in the 12th century. A curtain wall, together with the surviving north west hall and solar block, was erected probably in the early 13th century; this was surrounded by a broad most, still largely complete though drained in the mid-19th century. A chapel block projecting from the east front of the hall range was rebuilt in stone c.1300. The splendid north gatehouse was added in 1292-3. The main functions of the early medieval castle was as the headquarters of the constable-warden of the Forest [of Dean], and also as a prison and arsenal for locally manufactured weapons. By the 15th-16th centuries it was partially disused, though tree-ring dating suggests extensive alterations to the solar and chapel in the early 1590s. [Also in 1692 it was said that 'the greatest part (was) ruined and fallen down]. Courts for the administration of the Royal Forest of Dean continued to be held here until 1842, the gatehouse serving as its gaol. The castle was much restored c.1905 on conversion to a private residence..." p. 657