👻 HAUNTED PLACE · EXP. Nº9477
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Berry Pomeroy Castle
Berry Pomeroy Castle is a location reputed to be haunted in Devon, England, GB. Its reputation comes from reported apparitions, unexplained phenomena and eyewitness accounts gathered over time.
Where is Berry Pomeroy Castle?
- Location
- Devon, England, GB
- Type
- Castle
- Coordinates
- 50.449, -3.637
- Testimonies
- 0
- Last updated
LOCATION
Why is Berry Pomeroy Castle said to be haunted?
Berry Pomeroy Castle stands above a wooded limestone gorge in South Devon: a late 15th-century artillery fortress with a four-storey Elizabethan mansion built inside its walls and a vast Jacobean range beside it that was never finished. The Pomeroys held the manor from the Norman Conquest and sold it on 1 December 1547 to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. It is famous, though, for two ghosts. The White Lady is said to be Margaret Pomeroy, starved in a tower dungeon by a jealous sister, Eleanor; the Blue Lady is said to beckon visitors towards a fatal drop. Neither woman appears in the family genealogies. The oldest datable printed version of the two-sisters story is a Minerva Press Gothic novel of 1806, in which the sisters are called Elinor and Matilda, and a Totnes guidebook of 1892 retold that novel as local history. The dungeon is a rock-cut basement with two windows and a triple gun port. English Heritage's own account of the castle mentions the hauntings once, to note that some people still believe them and that the place is promoted as the most haunted castle in Devon, perhaps unfortunately.
What is the history of Berry Pomeroy Castle?
For a long time Berry Pomeroy was described as a Norman castle turned into a Tudor mansion by Protector Somerset. Excavation has taken that story apart. Between 1980 and 1996 Stewart Brown dug roughly half the site for English Heritage, and the results, published by the Devon Archaeological Society, show a fortress begun on previously unused ground in the later 15th century — some four hundred years after the family whose name it carries first arrived.
The Pomeroys came from La Pommeraye, near Falaise in Normandy. William the Conqueror granted the manor of Berri to Ralf de Pomaria, and his descendants held it for over four centuries without, as far as the archaeology can tell, building a castle on this spot at all. The castle that exists was raised in a lawless Devon during the Wars of the Roses, most likely by Henry Pomeroy, who held the manor between 1461 and 1487, or by his heir Sir Richard, whose death in 1496 produces the first documentary mention of it.
It was built for guns. The gatehouse has six gunports on the ground floor, with wide internal splays so a single piece could be swung across a broad field of fire, and the basement of St Margaret's Tower, at the south-east corner, holds a port designed for three guns of graduated sizes covering the southern approach — a design English Heritage describes as the only known example of its kind outside Germany, and one that would not reappear in England until Camber Castle in 1512–14.
On 1 December 1547 Sir Thomas Pomeroy, impoverished, sold castle, park and manor to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector to the boy king Edward VI. Somerset was executed in January 1552 and the estate was briefly forfeit to the Crown before passing to his eldest son, Edward, Lord Seymour (1529–1593). It was that Edward, not the Protector, who between about 1560 and 1580 cleared the Pomeroy buildings away and put up a compact four-storey Elizabethan house inside the medieval walls.
His son, Edward Seymour II, began around 1600 a Jacobean north range conceived on the scale of Longleat or Hatfield, with one of the longest galleries ever built in England and a classical loggia below a balcony. He died in 1613 with it unfinished, and it was never finished. An inventory taken in 1688, after the death of a later Sir Edward, shows the family living in an updated version of the old Elizabethan house and using the great range hardly at all.
The end was deliberate. Sir Edward Seymour, 4th Baronet (1633–1708) — Speaker of the House of Commons, and a man with a seat in Wiltshire he preferred — had the building stripped: timbers, flagstones, lead, roof tiles, window glass and dressed stone all carted off. By 1697 the Devon clergyman John Prince could write of it as demolished. The Seymours moved to Maiden Bradley, succeeded to the dukedom of Somerset in 1750, and kept the ruin. In 1734 the brothers Buck published a south view of it; by then the wreck was already a picturesque subject, and it has been one ever since.
Timeline: the documented record of Berry Pomeroy Castle
- Late 11th century William the Conqueror grants the manor of Berri to Ralf de Pomaria, a Norman knight from La Pommeraye near Falaise. His descendants hold it for more than four hundred years, but the archaeology finds no castle of theirs on this site.
- 1496 Sir Richard Pomeroy dies as owner: the first documentary mention of a castle at Berry Pomeroy. Excavation dates the fortress to the later 15th century, built on previously unused ground, probably by Henry Pomeroy (1461–87) or by Sir Richard himself.
- 1 December 1547 Sir Thomas Pomeroy, impoverished, sells the castle, park and manor to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector to Edward VI. It is the end of the Pomeroy tenure.
- January 1552 Somerset is executed. The estate is briefly forfeit to the Crown before passing to his eldest son, Edward, Lord Seymour (1529–1593), who from about 1560 builds a four-storey Elizabethan house inside the medieval walls.
- 1613 Edward Seymour II dies with the Jacobean north range begun around 1600 still unfinished. Conceived on the scale of Longleat, with one of the longest galleries built in England, it is never completed.
- 1688 An inventory taken on the death of a later Sir Edward Seymour shows the family living in an updated version of the old Elizabethan house and barely using the great range. It is among the last records of the castle inhabited.
- By 1697 Sir Edward Seymour, 4th Baronet (1633–1708), Speaker of the House of Commons, has the castle stripped of timber, flagstones, lead, tiles, glass and dressed stone. The Devon clergyman John Prince already writes of it as demolished. The family settles at Maiden Bradley in Wiltshire.
- 1734 Samuel and Nathaniel Buck publish 'The South View of Berry-Pomery Castle'. The ruin is already a picturesque subject, and no ghost appears in the topographical literature of the period.
- 1806 William Lane's Minerva Press publishes 'The Castle of Berry Pomeroy' under the name Edward Montague: Lady Elinor de Pomeroy contrives the death of her sister Matilda, whose ghost then hounds the conspirators. It is the oldest datable printed appearance of the two-sisters plot. Two copies of the first edition are known.
- 1892 The Totnes printers T. & A. Mortimer reissue the novel and publish a guidebook, 'Berry Pomeroy Castle: An Historical and Descriptive Sketch', which retells its invented plot as fact. Emma McEvoy raises the possibility that 'Edward Montague' was a Mortimer of Totnes.
- 1915 H. Michell Whitley surveys the castle for the Devonshire Association. He describes the basement of St Margaret's Tower — the legendary dungeon — as a rock-cut chamber with a loophole, two small windows, an angle aumbry and a bracket, and mentions no ghost anywhere in the paper.
- 1927 H. R. Watkin publishes a note on Berry Pomeroy Castle in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association. By now the imprisonment story has crossed from guidebooks into an archaeological journal.
- 1990 Deryck Seymour publishes 'The Ghosts of Berry Pomeroy Castle' (Obelisk Publications), the fullest survey of the legends. He notes that the oral versions are growing more lurid, the victim now starved to death or walled up alive.
- 1980–1996 Stewart Brown excavates about half the site for English Heritage. The results, published by the Devon Archaeological Society, dismantle the Norman-castle story and date the fortress to the later 15th century.
- 2016 Emma McEvoy devotes a chapter of 'Gothic Tourism' to Berry Pomeroy, tracing the change from eighteenth-century accounts of a charming and idyllic ruin to accounts of a place overrun by spectres.
Is there a rational explanation for Berry Pomeroy Castle?
The two ladies fail the simplest test there is: neither woman is in the family trees. There is no record of a Lady Margaret Pomeroy with a sister Eleanor, in the Pomeroy pedigree or the Seymour one. The recorded daughters of Sir Thomas Pomeroy, the last of the line to own the place, were Elizabeth and Katherine.
The victim's name is not even stable. The oldest datable printed version of the plot is a Gothic novel, The Castle of Berry Pomeroy, issued by William Lane's Minerva Press in 1806 under the name Edward Montague; in it Lady Elinor de Pomeroy contrives the death of her sister Matilda over the castle and a man, and Matilda's ghost then hounds the conspirators. The novel is scarce — two copies of the first edition are known, in the British Library and the Corvey collection — but it did not stay put. In 1892 the Totnes printers T. & A. Mortimer reissued it and also published a guidebook, Berry Pomeroy Castle: An Historical and Descriptive Sketch, which, as Emma McEvoy notes, presented the novel's invented adventure as fact; McEvoy goes further and raises the possibility that "Edward Montague" was a Mortimer of Totnes. By 1927 the story had been repeated in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association. Modern tellings call the murdered sister Margaret, which is not the name the novel gave her; some Devon writers still meet her as Matilda. A woman whose name changes with the retelling is not a memory of a person.
Where "Margaret" comes from is the tower, not the other way round. St Margaret's Tower is the south-east corner tower of the 15th-century defences and appears under that name in the antiquarian record long before it acquired a prisoner. And the dungeon is not a dungeon. H. Michell Whitley, surveying the castle for the Devonshire Association in 1915, described the basement of that tower as a chamber cut mainly in the solid rock, reached by a stair from the room above, roofed with rough rubble vaulting and fitted with a loophole, two small windows, an angle aumbry and a bracket in the north wall. It is a store and a gun position with daylight in it, not an oubliette; English Heritage's own architectural description of the castle does not use the word dungeon at all.
English Heritage is, in fact, the best sceptic on offer. Its published source list for Berry Pomeroy runs to more than forty items — record-office manuscripts, patent rolls, excavation reports, county histories, three of its own guidebooks and even an anonymous Totnes history of about 1825 — and contains not one book about the hauntings. Its architectural description, its statement of significance and its research summary never mention a ghost. The only page that does says the ruins "inspired blood-curdling ghost stories", adds that "some people still believe them", and observes that the castle is promoted as the most haunted castle in Devon "perhaps unfortunately". The same organisation sells an audio guide that tells the stories.
One account is always cited and I could not anchor it. Dr (later Sir) Walter Farquhar is said to have met a richly dressed woman on a stair at the castle in the late 18th century while attending the steward's dying wife. The accounts that circulate do not agree on whether the figure was the White Lady or the Blue one, and I could not trace the account to any publication I was able to read; what can be dated is the retelling, not the sighting. The same disagreement runs through the geography: some versions put the White Lady in St Margaret's Tower and the Blue Lady elsewhere, others reverse them.
Can you visit Berry Pomeroy Castle?
Berry Pomeroy Castle is in the guardianship of English Heritage and is open to the public: Berry Pomeroy, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6LJ, telephone 01803 866618 (site) or 0370 333 1181 (general enquiries). At the time of writing, in August 2026, it opens daily from 10.00 to 17.00, with last entry at 16.30.
Admission is free to English Heritage members, and the charity advertises 15 per cent off tickets bought online in advance, up to midnight the day before the visit; tickets are valid all day. I could not confirm the current gate price from the published pages, so check before travelling rather than trusting a figure copied from elsewhere. Membership starts at £44 a year.
The car park sits above the ruin, and a woodland walk drops down to it through the gorge; the walk itself gives the classic view of the castle from across the valley. Admission includes an audio guide, which does tell some of the ghost stories alongside the history.
Two practical warnings. This is a consolidated ruin, not a restored building: there are no roofs, the ground is uneven, and the site sits on the lip of a steep wooded limestone gorge, so footwear matters and small children need holding. And the castle is protected twice over — it is a scheduled monument (list entry 1017855) and a Grade I listed building (1108571) — which means the fabric is fenced or propped in places and not every part of the Elizabethan and Jacobean ranges can be entered.
Sources consulted
- English Heritage, «History of Berry Pomeroy Castle» — english-heritage.org.uk, 2026 web
- H. Michell Whitley, «Berry Pomeroy Castle» — Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 47, pp. 285–293, 1915 academic
- Emma McEvoy, «Becoming a Haunted Castle: Literature, Tourism and Folklore at Berry Pomeroy» — Gothic Tourism (The Palgrave Gothic Series), Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 127–159, 2016 academic
- Edward Montague, «The Castle of Berry Pomeroy» — Lane, Newman & Co. (Minerva Press), London; repr. Valancourt Books, 2014, 1806 book
- English Heritage, «Sources for Berry Pomeroy Castle» — english-heritage.org.uk, 2026 web
- Philip Davis, «Berry Pomeroy Castle (Gatehouse Gazetteer record 823)» — The Gatehouse: a comprehensive gazetteer of the medieval fortifications of England and Wales, 2024 web
- Deryck Seymour, «The Ghosts of Berry Pomeroy Castle» — Obelisk Publications, Newton Abbot (ISBN 978-0-946651-38-2), 1990 book
- English Heritage, «Description and Significance of Berry Pomeroy Castle» — english-heritage.org.uk, 2026 web
Reviewed by V. Serrano on 2026-08-17 · How we verify our content
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