HMS Berkeley Castle (K387) HMS Berkeley Castle (K387) HMS "Berkeley Castle" was a Castle-class corvette of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. She was named after Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. The Castle-class corvettes were an improved and enlarged derivative of the earlier Flower-class corvettes, which was intended to be built by shipyards that could not build the larger and more capable frigates. The greater length of the Castles gave made them better seaboats than the Flowers, which were not originally designed for ocean escort work. Large numbers (96 in total) were ordered in late 1942 and early 1943 from shipyards in the United Kingdom and
Berkeley, Gloucestershire 824 as "Berclea", from the Old English for "birch lea". Berkeley was a significant place in medieval times. It was a port and market-town, and the meeting place of the hundred of Berkeley. After the Norman Conquest, a Flemish noble named Roger de Tosny was appointed Provost of the manor of Berkeley by his brother-in-law (or perhaps uncle) Earl William FitzOsbern. His family took the name "de Berkeley", and it was he who began the construction of Berkeley Castle, which was completed by his son, also Roger. A younger son of the elder Roger, John de Berkeley, went north to