King William I of England

Bramber A Ruined Norman Castle The ruined remains you can see above the village are of a castle built by the powerful de Braose family, who were lords of the Rape of Bramber for over 300 years from about 1080. Bramber Rape was a wide belt of land extending from the coast at Shoreham as far as the Surrey border near Crawley. The castle was built by William de Braose on part of a huge earlier Anglo-Saxon estate centred on Washington (to the west, beside the A24) which was given by William the Conqueror to him and his family. At that time the Adur was fully navigable to this point, and there was a port below the castle. The third William de Braose was favoured by King John, but they fell out, and his wife and heir were imprisoned in a dungeon at Windsor and starved to death. William escaped, disguised as a beggar, and fled to France. The castle was allowed to decay into ruins after the last de Braose who owned Bramber died in 1394, he is buried in Horsham church. Just down the street is St Mary's, the timber-framed remains of an inn built by the bridge in the mid-1400s, close to the port that once existed at Bramber. Both the Castle and St Mary's are open to the public.

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