Berkeley, Gloucestershire

⦁ Berclea from the Old English for ''birch lea''

⦁ Once the site of the Berkeley nuclear power station.

⦁ Legend of the Witch of Berkeley who sold her soul to the devil in return for wealth. The Devil carried her away on a black horse .

⦁ Gloucster and Sharpness Canal

⦁ Used to be a railway' Bristol and Gloucester Railway.

⦁ Edward Jenner- Vaccination

⦁ Temple of Vaccinia

⦁ John Fitzardinge Paul Butler - Victoria cross

⦁ Berkeley Hunt - Oldest in the country being founded in the 12th Century. Hounds were kept to hunt stag and buck.

⦁ Berkeley Square - nightingale sang ?

⦁ Shakespeare may have written A midsummers nights dream for a wedding of a Berkeley family member in 1596

⦁ Dickie Pearce - Possibly the last court jester in england, died at Berkely when he fell from the minstrels gallery  in the Great Hall.

⦁ Edward II ( 1284-1327) was murdered here, in 1327, legend says by using a red hot poker to burn his internal organs.

⦁ Silver Chalice once owned by Earl Godwin, father of Harold the last Saxon King of England.

⦁ Cattle Country

⦁ Dr Jenner's House

⦁ Swimming pool

⦁ Flag - Edward II

⦁ Knight- News of ghost captured on video by a drone.

⦁ Fly - Immortalised in a stained glass sundial in a window in the castle .

⦁ 12th century marcher castle built by the Berkeley family in 1153.

⦁ Toad- flesh eating berkeley toad, John Smyth, steward of the Berkely family recorded local sayings and stories including the tale of a huge toad, in the time of HenryVII, that was fed by the local butchers.

⦁ Cuckoo- Jenner was elected to the Royal Society in 1789 for his work on the study of cuckoos.

 Air balloon- Jenner launched a small hydrogen balloon from Berkeley Castle in 1784. It flew 10 miles to Kingscote, landed then launched again landing at Birdlip.

⦁ Flag of Virginia- Berkeley plantation on the James River wasthe first U.S. Thanksgiving in 1619, at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia

⦁ Cow -Blossom , the Gloucester cow famous for being used by Jenner in the discovery of vaccination of small pox. 'Vacca' being the Latin name for cow.

⦁ Fir Tree- planted in 1968 to celebrate the  birth of an heir to Berkeley Castle.

⦁ Bell tower-  Built separately from the church in 1753 .It  has 10 bells, and used to ring the curfew bell at eight O'clock every night from October 10th to March 25th.

 

⦁ Cyclamen - In the 19th Century, Mrs. Stackhouse, wife of Canon Stackhouse, a former vicar of Berkeley, brought home a cyclamen tuber ,secretely, from her visit to the Vatican In the Vatican Garden the cyclamen (Cyclamen Neapolitanum) were in bloom. Mrs. Stackhouse loved to bring back a souvenir from any garden she visited, and the habit of a lifetime pressed upon her. Swiftly, she dropped her umbrella, and under the very eyes of the Papal Guard, managed to conceal a cyclamen corm inside it as she retrieved it. Some years later an old gentleman called and asked if he could look inside The Chantry again, as he had been a regular visitor there when Canon Stackhouse was vicar. Rev. Fisher asked him if the story of the cyclamen was true.

⦁ .

Print from an original Illustration by Katie B Morgan