History

Sir William de Braose built Bramber castle around 1070 and added a chapel later in 1075. The chapel features a stone carving of a fox preaching to geese, possibly a Saxon stone masons commentary on the political realities of the era. At one time the church housed a small Benedictine college. 

In 1208 all the de Braose property was confiscated by King John. William de Braose escaped to France, but by 1209 John had captured Matilda de Braose and imprisoned her in Windsor castle where he starved her to death in 1211. After John’s death, the castle was returned to the de Braose family. The castle remained in the de Braose family until 1324, when the family line ended. 

The castle was besieged by Parliamentarian forces during the English Civil war in 1642. The church was quite badly damaged when the Parliamentarian guns were set up in the transepts to fire on the castle. Cromwell ordered the castle slighted so that it could not be used again by the royalist forces.