3-043-753 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Bramber Castle, Sussex, 1872. 'Bramber Castle, near Steyning, is a little further from Brighton than Lewes, but in the opposite direction. This Norman fortress, on the site of a palace of the South Saxon kings, was designed to command the passage to or from the seacoast along the river Adur - as Lewes Castle was intended to shut the valley of the Ouse, and Arundel that of the Arun. It is probable that the Norman conquerors fortified this strip of the Sussex coast with a view to holding it, in case of need, against an insurrection of the inland English, and thereby securing their communications with Normandy. The range of South Downs, only broken through by the three small rivers above named, might form an effectual rampart; while the estuaries of those rivers were then in a condition to form useful harbours. Bramber was held by William de Braose, whose descendants afterwards gained high places for themselves on the Welsh and on the Scottish Borders, under the altered name of Brus or Bruce. The old Keep Tower, with the moat full of trees all round it, and the masonry half buried in mounds of green turf, is extremely picturesque'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.