Emerging into the open court, a highly enriched Norman archway is found, which forms the entrance into the courtyard of the keep, where, at some ten or twelve yards above the base-court, a number of wild ducks are quietly domiciled in a small pond formed in its centre, and where they have remained for some years contrary to their nature, apparently without a wish for change. From thence the ramparts are ascended, and a fine view is obtained of the surrounding country.
The Church is a fine early structure adjoining the castle, and attached to its south side is the mortuary chapel of the Berkeley family—a richly groined edifice, divided
into two compartments by a handsome stone screen, the inner or eastern apartment containing several monuments of the family. The altar end is blocked up by a fine Elizabethan tomb of Sir Henry Berkeley, who died in 1613; his first wife’s effigies are placed by his side. Under an arch, opening into the south side of the chancel, is a highly enriched and decorated altar-tomb, on which lie the effigies of another Earl of Berkeley and his son. It is a beautiful specimen of the period, divided into fourteen niches, having floriated canopies, under which are figures on pedestals—the Virgin and Child, St. Christopher with our Saviour, St. George and the dragon, and St. Peter, are among the number.
The groining of the chapel is curious, as containing in its several bosses and panels a connected set of emblems referring to the awful mystery of the Holy Trinity, with a most unaccountable interpolation of the monkish satires of the fox preaching to geese, a monkey holding a bottle, &c.
The churchyard contains a monument to the last of those privileged characters, the “fool” or jester of the nobility. He was in the employ of the Earl of Suffolk, and appears to have been lent to Lord Berkeley. He was buried 18th June, 1728. At the end of the monument are the arms of the earl, and on one side this inscription,—
“My lord that’s gone, himself made much of him!”
On the opposite side are these lines written by Dean Swift, who was chaplain to Charles Earl of Berkeley:—
“Here lies the Earl of Suffolk’s fool,
Men call him Dicky Pearce;
His folly served to make men laugh,
When wit and mirth were scarce.
Poor Dick, alas! is dead and gone—
What signifies to cry?
Dickies enough are left behind
To laugh at by and by.”
The village bears the half-maritime character usual in places near the sea, or an arm of