Berry Pomeroy Castle: A Walk Into Devon’s Most Atmospheric Ruin
Berry Pomeroy Castle does not announce itself. You walk through a deep wooded combe two miles east of Totnes, the brook running clear over the stones, and the ruin appears in the trees almost as an afterthought. Then you take a second look. Two storeys of empty mullioned windows stare back through ivy, the gatehouse arch still intact, the curtain wall hugging the contour above the valley. Few castles in Devon reward a walk-in like this one does.
The two ways to get there
You can drive. The English Heritage car park sits 50 metres from the castle entrance, holds about 25 to 30 cars, and is free for visitors using the cafe and castle. It can fill quickly on summer weekends. The site sits roughly two and a half miles from Totnes off the A385.
The more rewarding option is to walk in. From the centre of Totnes, head up Castle Street and out past the leisure centre, picking up the lanes that drop into the valley of Gatcombe Brook. The route forms part of the John Musgrave Heritage Trail and can be done as a circular of around six kilometres, returning over open farmland with views back across the Dart. Allow two hours plus time inside the castle. Boots are recommended after rain: the woodland sections hold the wet for days.
What you are actually looking at
The castle is two buildings stitched together. The earlier work, dating from the late fourteenth century, was a fortified manor of the Pomeroy family: a stout curtain wall, a gatehouse, and the round St Margaret’s Tower at the south-east corner. The Pomeroys held the place for almost five hundred years.
In 1547 the estate was bought by Sir Edward Seymour, brother of Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, and Lord Protector under the young Edward VI. The Seymours built grandly into the existing walls, raising a four-storey Elizabethan mansion intended to be one of the largest country houses in England. They never finished it. By the eighteenth century the place was abandoned, and the slow collapse you see today began.
Berry Pomeroy is famous as much for its hauntings as its history. The White Lady, the Blue Lady, sounds in the empty halls: most of the legends date from Victorian guidebooks rather than medieval records, but the atmosphere does its own work. Visit late on an October afternoon and you will not need a ghost story to feel it.
Visiting practicalities
The castle is managed by English Heritage. Opening is seasonal, typically running from late March through early November, with hours of around 10:00 to 16:00 and last admission an hour before closing. Winter opening is much more limited, so check the English Heritage website before you travel. Standard adult admission applies, with free entry for members.
Dogs on leads are welcome in the grounds. The cafe in the gatehouse serves cream teas and is genuinely better than it needs to be, with views over the south lawn. Toilets are on site. The site is partially accessible: the courtyard is reasonably level, but the upper floors of the mansion involve uneven stone stairs.
Combining the castle with a longer walk
If you have made it to Berry Pomeroy, the walk is half the point. The path from the castle drops south into Gatcombe valley, follows the brook for half a mile through ancient oak and beech, and climbs out toward the village of Berry Pomeroy itself, with its parish church of St Mary’s worth a five-minute look for the screen and rood. From there you can pick up lanes back to Totnes via Bridgetown, completing a loop of roughly seven miles with the castle visit included.
Tougher walkers can extend onto the John Musgrave eastward to Marldon and the Compton estate, but for most visitors a half-day round trip from Totnes is plenty.
When to go
April brings wild garlic carpeting the woods and the first bluebells. May is the best month for the castle itself, when the gardens are tidy and the crowds have not yet arrived. August is the busiest, with the car park sometimes full by mid-morning. October has the light and the quiet but a real risk of mud underfoot in the combe.
Berry Pomeroy Castle rewards walkers who arrive slowly. It is a place to read the stones for an hour, eat lunch on the south lawn, and walk back to Totnes feeling that you have done a proper day out. For another atmospheric ruin paired with a longer walk, our piece on Dartmoor’s south-eastern edge from Buckfastleigh covers the upland equivalent.