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The Leaning Tower of Bridgnorth, Shropshire
11 March 2001
A 70-feet-tall Norman tower and some other stonework is all that's left of a great castle built exactly 900 years ago and around which grew up the town of Bridgnorth in Shropshire. The castle was occupied for around five centuries, surviving at least four lengthy sieges until finally it fell to Cromwell's army in the English Civil War. He left it much as it is today, leaning at an angle of 15 degrees – three times more than the famous leaning tower of Pisa. The rest of it is gone – destroyed or plundered – along with all of the town's early records. The people of Bridgnorth asked Time Team to try to paint a picture of what it might have looked like in its heyday.
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The finest view and the nastiest man
In 1642, King Charles I described the view from Castle Walk, in Bridgnorth, as 'the finest in my domain'. The castle, built on a promontory commanding the river Severn and the surrounding landscape, was certainly dramatically situated. And even its destruction by the besieging parliamentary forces in 1646, leaving the main keep with its distinctive lean, only added to the impact of the setting.
The castle was founded in 1101 by Robert de Belleme, who subsequently became Earl of Shrewsbury. Time Team historian Robin Bush said of him: 'We've come across many unpleasant characters on Time Team over the years but I think he takes the biscuit as the nastiest. He would take captives and refuse to ransom them, so that he could have the pleasure of torturing them to death. He would impale men and women on hooks. He starved 300 prisoners to death over Lent. And the worst thing of all was he had as a hostage his godson, a little lad, and because the child's father had displeased him he gouged out the child's eyes with his own bare fingernails.'
The siege castle and sieges
Robert de Belleme held the castle for barely a year before Henry I – against whom de Belleme had started plotting – seized it from him after a three-month siege. A siege castle – a huge earthwork from which Henry's forces could fire their catapults and other weapons into the castle – was constructed on the south-west side of the Severn valley in 1102. De Belleme was imprisoned for the rest of his life following his defeat. (The siege castle earthworks can still be climbed across the river from Bridgnorth Castle. Pan Pudding Hill, as it is known today, is where Time Team brought in a re-enactment society to demonstrate the use of the perrier, a medieval siege catapult.)
The castle was then taken by Hugh de Mortimer during the civil strife between the followers of Stephen and Matilda from 1135 to 1154. He was dislodged following a siege in 1155, when Henry I's siege castle was again used by the besiegers – as it was in later sieges during the Barons' Revolt in 1321 and the English Civil War in 1646.
Between 1155 and 1189, both Henry II and John undertook extensive works to strengthen and extend the castle. The keep dates from this period, and a barbican was added later. More construction work was carried out in the early 1200s, but once Edward I had extended the reach of the Norman kings into Wales, Bridgnorth lost much of its strategic importance and fell into decline.
As well as the 1321 siege – when the castle again fell to its besiegers – Bridgnorth also underwent a 26-day siege by the parliamentary forces in 1646. This time the besiegers blew up the keep, resulting in its present-day lean, and destroyed much of the rest of the castle.
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