The Brocas

The Brocas is a large meadow adjacent to the River Thames and part of the floodplain. It belongs to Eton College. It affords magnificent views of Windsor Castle, the slender buttresses of St George’s Chapel giving delicate relief from the rugged, bare walls of the Lower Bailey and the Curfew Tower. The name comes from the Brocas family. They were originally from Gascony where they fought for several generations in the English cause against the French, the family finally settling in England and acquiring a considerable amount of land
in Eton and Windsor. Sir Bernard Brocas (ca 1330-95), was Master of the Horse to King Edward III and a good friend of the Black Prince. He was a friend of William of Wykeham, (who was first connected with Sir Bernard’s father, Sir John de Brocas, over the building of Windsor Castle). Sir Bernard died in 1395 and was buried in St Edmund’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey. It is a popular area for dog walking, picnics and flying kites. There is still an annual fair on the meadows in July and August, though this is not connected directly to the fairs that were provided by Henry VI ‘for the temporal wants of the pilgrims to Eton’ on the Feast of the Assumption, at which indulgences were sold to sinners for the remission of their sins.