BERKELEY, a market-town in the county of Gloucester, near the river Severn, on the Bristol and Gloucester railway. It is pleasantly situated on a gentle eminence, in a rich pastoral vale to which it gives name, and which is celebrated for its dairies, producing the famous cheese known as "double Gloucester." The town has a handsome church, a grammar-school, town-hall, market-house, and some trade in timber, malt, and cheese, by means of the Gloucester and Berkeley canal. Berkeley was the birthplace of the celebrated Dr Jenner, whose remains are interred in the church. Market-day Wednesday. Pop. (1851) 949.
Berkeley Castle, on an eminence S.E. of the town, is still in good preservation. This magnificent structure was built in the reign of Henry I, but it suffered considerably during the civil wars of the seventeenth century. It is still one of the noblest baronial castles extant in England. It is noted as the scene of the most barbarous murder of Edward II.