⚔ Battlefields of Britain

Siege of Bridgwater 1645

Siege of Bridgwater: Bridgwater Castle ruins
Image: John Chubb (18th century), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Marker: recorded battle location (no official boundary).

Key facts

Date13 July 1645 – 23 July 1645Wikidata
Date (year)1645Wikidata P580 start time
Century17th centuryderived
PeriodCivil Warsderived
CountryEnglandderived

About the battle

The siege of Bridgwater took place in July 1645, during the First English Civil War, when a Royalist garrison surrendered to a Parliamentarian force under Sir Thomas Fairfax.

After their victory at Naseby in June, Fairfax and the New Model Army moved into Somerset, where they linked up with the Western Association Army led by Edward Massey. On 10 July, their combined force destroyed the last significant Royalist field army at Langport, clearing the way for an attack on Bridgwater.

Siege operations began on 13 July; on 21st, Parliamentarian forces stormed the western part of the town. Many of the buildings were set on fire, and the garrison capitulated on 23 July; over 1,600 prisoners were taken, along with large quantities of weapons and other stores.

Visiting the battlefield

Location

  • Recorded location (Wikidata; may be approximate): 51.1000, -2.9000

Battlefields are often on private farmland: please keep to public rights of way and respect landowners.

Directions (Google Maps) OpenStreetMap

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Bridgwater (1645) (revision 1370739787), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations removed. No text added.

Battle location from Wikidata (CC0).

Nearby battlefields

Browse more: battles in Somerset · battles in England · Civil Wars · 17th century battles

Further reading