Warwick Castle

Warwick Castle is a medieval castle in Warwick, the county town of Warwickshire, England. It sits on a cliff overlooking a bend in the River Avon. Warwick Castle was built by William the Conqueror in 1068 within or adjacent to Anglo-Saxon burh of Warwick. It was used as a fortification until the early 17th century, when Sir Fulke Greville converted it to a country house. It was owned by the Greville family, who became earls of Warwick in 1759, until 1978.


From 1088, the castle traditionally belonged to the Earl of Warwick, and it served as a symbol of his power. The castle was taken in 1153 by Henry of Anjou, later Henry II. It has been used to hold prisoners, including some from the Battle of Poitiers in the 14th century. Under the ownership of Richard Neville – also known as "Warwick the Kingmaker" – Warwick Castle was used in the 15th century to imprison the English king, Edward IV. Warwick Castle has been compared with Windsor Castle in terms of scale, cost, and status.


Since its construction in the 11th century, the castle has undergone structural changes with additions of towers and redesigned residential buildings. Originally a wooden motte-and-bailey (which was a building type that consisted of creating an artificial hill and building a wooden fortification on it, with a moat), it was rebuilt in stone in the 12th century. During the Hundred Years War, the facade opposite the town was refortified, resulting in one of the most recognizable examples of 14th century military architecture.

In the 17th century the grounds were turned into a garden. Warwick Castle was purchased by The Tussauds Group in 1978 and opened as a tourist attraction.


We appreciated this sign, given that in Belgium they don't warn you in advance that the climb you are about to take could kill you. The sky was clear and once we made our way to the top, it gave us stunning views of the countryside.


These are the stairs leading up to Guys Tower. Towers were the mainstay of a castle's defensive system. Because they projected above and out from the wall, they gave archers a clear view downwards and sideways. Guy's Tower was built in the 14th century. It is twelve-sided, stands 39 meters high and has 5 stories.


Some of the beautiful views from the parapets.


The Great Hall and State rooms - the parts of the castle that were turned into a country home, from above.


Poor D! The 530 steps wore him out. But, given how inviting that grass was (truly like a carpet) I didn't blame him for wanting to take a little rest.


The Great Hall is the largest room in the castle and throughout history had been its heart. In the early middle ages, straw and dirt covered the floor of the Great Hall. Burning in the center of the room would have been a large fire, its smoke turning the air acrid. The only natural light filtered through narrow lancet windows. Here it was that the nobility ate, drank and even slept. The hall as it stands today was first constructed in the 14th century. It was rebuilt in the 17th century and then restored in 1871 after it had been badly damaged by a fire. The period weapons and armor, as well as the enormous side-table, add to the atmosphere and give a greater appreciation for just how big this room really is.


I have never been to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, so it was fun to have many of the rooms of the castle contain wax exhibits. This one is of Henry VIII and his 6 wives, which I liked because I had recently read Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance. The castle also had wax figures in rooms of the former Earls and some of their famous visitors, like Winston Churchill (MUCH shorter than I thought) and Queen Elizabeth II (taller than we thought - although we couldn't see her feet, so we hypothesized that she had heels on and was on a platform).


The castle boasts of a peacock garden, containing lovely hedges and flowers and full of the birds as well. They are all over the castle grounds and have recognized that people are a source of food and not dangerous, so they come VERY close to you. This one was scared up toward me by a toddler who became too curious for his liking, which was great for me to get this pic. He ran within inches of me.


Again, the falconry display was our favorite. So much so that this time, we caught both shows. They flew the same birds but since we knew what was going to happen the second time, we were able to sit in the shade and really take it in in comfort. The troupe of trainers/handlers were more professional than the one we encountered at Mary Arden's Farm and we took the opportunity to talk to them after the show. We learned a lot about the falconry business (all over, in England, the Middle East and America), the birds that are used and when (they use the eagles in the summer - when the biggest crowds are there - because they are such big, impressive birds to watch flying and this troupe is one of only 2 that are licensed to fly such big birds, and falcons are used in the winter), feeding, and about breeding them.

D and I were so excited to see an American Bald Eagle up close and to see him fly (his name was Stan). I guess he is a particularly good flyer (different birds have different skills, some are better flyers, some are better killers, etc - didn't know that) so watching him was a joy. And, it turned out that Stan is a new dad - they had, for the first time, been successful in breeding him and the chick was 4 weeks old. Rick, the handler kind enough to chat with us for so long, even offered to let us see the eagle chick, which we eagerly accepted. They had him in a shack "behind the scenes" and he was all fuzzy grey with HUGE claws (I guess like puppies, they grow into their feet.) The coolest/funniest bit was that there was poop just everywhere. Apparently, it is instinctual to go to the nests edge and relieve themselves - but there is a projectile component to it that meant that the shed had poop stains 4-6 feet away from the nest all over the walls. They had hence put up a cardboard "backboard" to coral the mess. We even got to witness the pooping (making sure we were not on the business end). The highlight of our day.


I don't know much about medieval weapons; the standard mace, sword, lance, longbow are about the extent of my knowledge. This remarkable machine is called a trebuchet and is a siege machine developed in the 13th century for attacking the solid castle walls. As the defenses of castles improved, so did the weapons of attack. The trebuchet was the largest and most formidable of the siege machines and is, in essence, a huge catapult.


The trebuchet was used to fire huge projectiles to breach castle walls. Large rocks and stones were the main ammunition but there is evidence of more unusual material. Manure and dead animals were also hurled by the machines into the besieged castle to spread disease - pigs were the animal of choice as they were thought to be more aerodynamic. [I am not making this up - I couldn't make up stuff this good. Aerodynamic pigs?!? The first chemical warfare.] Weighing in at 22 tons and standing 18 meters tall, this massive machine was fired twice for us - the second time at the end of the day with a flaming fireball. We had talked to the trebuchet operator (a recent college grad in philosophy - funny huh? - who has interest in medieval weaponry) during his off time and learned about the machine, how they learned about it (big school for medieval weaponry in the Netherlands), how sophisticated it really is (both in construction as well as firing it - the wrong set up results in the cannon ball dropping straight down on top of the machine, destroying it and killing those operating it) as well as the best place to watch the fire show at the end of the day. We have some good video of that too.


These last two pics were just because it is so darn pretty there that we felt compelled to try and capture it. This place was really surprising and great. It had the feel of the Renaissance Festival (a huge Medieval fair that has several locations around the US that have great shows, food, dressed characters teaching and entertaining, singers, the whole works) but was at a legitimately historically accurate place and therefore, kept everything educational as well as entertaining. The food wasn't as accurate, but that is good by me. I saw so many kids running around with little knight and princess outfits on (all sold by the gift shops) and it was great. This is a terrific place for families - good stuff for kids, awesome stuff for adults, and enough to do to keep all happy all day. We loved it.