Bristol Castle

Bristol Castle was a Norman stronghold built late in the 11th century on the north bank of the River Avon. Its stone walls once enclosed two defended courts, a great keep and a church. Today the ruins lie in Castle Park beside the Broadmead Shopping Centre, where the old sally port still opens into the buried moat. The fortress played a central part in England’s medieval wars. Robert of Gloucester made it his headquarters during the civil conflict after Henry I’s death. King Henry III spent heavily on new halls and towers here. Eleanor of Brittany spent seventeen years confined in the keep. In 1399 three men were executed without trial by the future Henry IV. By the 17th century the castle was deliberately dismantled to deny it to Royalists. Visitors walk over grass where the outer walls once stood. A postern tunnel runs beneath the south-west corner. The surviving Castle Vaults show parts of the banqueting hall reused above ground. The covered moat still carries water through the park, and a sally port near St Peter’s Church leads down to it. The whole site is a quiet public space, its ancient stonework protected as a scheduled monument.