Putting the Castles in "Castles and Bones"

I have been trying to write up my adventure to Warwick Castle for almost two weeks now, with no success. So here it is, a last-ditch attempt to tell you all about my first big tourist trip in England.

As a sidenote, I have attempted to include a link that anyone can follow to my Warwick Castle album on Facebook. Let me know if it doesn't work!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2555291&id=14814634&l=adb4270eb5

Also, you can click on any of the photos in the blog to see a bigger version of the picture!


The International Student Welcome Program set up a field trip for all of us who opted to go on a Saturday. It was a full day: we had to travel about an hour by bus to the castle, and were there from about 11:30am-4pm. I went with a group of people I had been spending time with during Welcome Week, an eclectic group of majors and nationalities. We had a pretty good time exploring the castle!

Warwick Castle has been home to some very important people in English history. Like much of this part of England, Warwick was an integral earldom in the War of the Roses, which was fought in the mid to late 1400's. It all began when a weak king was deposed by another offshoot of the royal line, who was later challenged by yet another (only slightly more legitimate) offshoot of the royal line. Complicated politics, lots of battles, lots of major regime changes.

The most famous inhabitant of Warwick Castle was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. He gained the title through marriage to the heiress of the last Earl of Warwick. Richard Neville is often referred to as "the Kingmaker", or simply as "Warwick." He is famous for having used his wealth and leadership to overthrow King Henry VI, the Lancastrian king, in favor of Edward IV, a Yorkist. When he failed to get along with King Edward's wife's formidable family, he managed to overthrow Edward and put Henry back on the throne. Eventually, he was killed in battle, and Edward regained the throne. A tumultuous life, in which Richard pretty much called the shots in England. Having recently read a good deal on the Wars of the Roses, I was excited to see Warwick's home.

{{Coincidentally, Richard Neville was the grandson of Joan Beaufort, who was the half-sister of King Henry IV, who started the Wars of the Roses and the House of Lancaster by taking the throne from his cousin. The wars would end when Henry VII won at Bosworth Field. Henry was the great-grandson of Joan Beaufort's oldest brother, John.}}

The first view of the castle was fantastic. It's a very impressive building, with huge walls and towers, and a very steep ditch surrounding it. It's a classic motte and bailey castle, which was a popular design for the Normans. This type of castle consists of a large hill (motte), with a tower built on the top. At the bottom of the hill is a wall surrounding the bailey, the area where the lord's retainers would live and where his horses would be kept. The first fortification to be built here was a wooden motte and bailey castle erected in 1068, only two years after the Norman conquest!

 As soon as I went through the gatehouse, I found myself immersed in medieval history. It was an amazing feeling, to know that kings and commoners who changed the history of England walked the same places I was walking. Plus, the castle was pretty cool-looking. Warwick Castle used to be a private residence (1759-1978), but it was sold to Madame Tussaud's Waxworks, who set it up as a tourist attraction. Having heard this, I was a little skeptical of the quality of the interiors, but I was pleasantly surprised. Although there were some really kitschy tourist elements, lots of the antique furnishings and decorations were still there.

Here's the view down from the tower. You can see the steep bank down to the River Avon (as in Stratford-Upon-Avon). The large wooden thing in the left side of the pictures is the world's largest trebuchet. Reconstucted from 13th century diagrams, it weighs about 22 tons and stands 18 meters tall! It can hurl a 30 pound projectile over 815 feet, beating the previous record held by the Dutch.

Behind the trebuchet, you will see sheep pasture. As I've learned on my travels, wherever there is countryside around historical monuments: there will be sheep.

Most parts of the inside that were accessible to visitors have been designed as small exhibit/attractions by the Waxworks people. We went through one called "Kingmaker," which took us through the process of getting ready for battle during the Wars of the Roses, complete with wax figurines of Richard Neville, his household, and even his horse.

Then, we finally made it up to the Great Hall, which was redone in the 1800's, and probably several times before that. It was a truly impressive hall, with walkways along the top that led to rooms on the next floor, and massive antlers from Ice Age Irish Elk (also known as Megaloceros, noted for having the largest antlers of any deer that ever lived).

We also saw some fantastically refinished rooms. This is one of the sitting rooms off the Great Hall. These would have been used by the Greville family, who became Earls of Warwick in the 1700's. There were also some spectacularly refinished bedrooms, which over the centuries, have seen visits by several royal people, including Queen Anne and Queen Elizabeth I. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and Elizabeth's favorite, had a brother named Ambrose, who was made Earl of Warwick. Both Ambrose and Robert are buried in the cathedral in the town, which I sadly didn't get to visit this time.

After exploring the interior,we decided to walk the ramparts. It was quite a climb that took us up into about three towers, and around two sides of the castle. Here's a quick snapshot to prove I made it up the first step of the journey! on the left is a picture up to the tallest of the towers in Warwick Castle. It was quite a climb, but not as bad as climbing up to the top of the Cologne cathedral's tower! I got a shot of group members Christine and Jason taking a photo down just as I was taking a photo up.

The fantastic view from the top. That's the archery ground that was off to the side of the castle, out through the archway you can see in my self-portrait above. Below, is my homage to Godzilla, with Rusty the Giant Sloth on the parapet.

It certainly was a brisk climb up all those towers. The weather mostly held out, but it was a little drizzly, which made everything a bit slippery. I have to admit, I feared for my life a few times. I can't look at a steep set of winding stairs with no exit in sight without getting a visual image of myself slipping and sending everyone behind toppling like dominoes or the soldiers on "Robin Hood: Men in Tights." However, I managed another safe ascent, and got to enjoy the fantastic views and know that I was standing in the same place as soldiers taking part in some of England's most important conflicts. Pretty amazing.

The view through one of the arrow slits, looking down on one of the outer towers.

Sadly, my camera was dying, which is why this post won't be entirely chock-full of photos. Stupid battery and it's pitifully short life. I forgot to charge my camera up before I left, and it was already on its way to death. Fortunately, I got my friends to take pictures for me, so lucked out there. Here's the last picture I managed to snap before my camera died. Can you tell it's raining at this point?


After the parapet walk, we explored a few more rooms inside. There was an attraction called "The Weekend Party", which restored rooms to their Victorian state, and told the story of Daisy, Countess of Warwick, who was a famous socialite (and mistress of the future Edward VII, eldest son of Queen Victoria!). The wax figures kind of creeped me out, but the restored rooms were cool.

We explored the Castle Dungeon, which was a sobering place. It was tiny, probably half the size of my dorm room. This was where all the really unfortunate prisoners were kept. There was a single drain running down the center of the chamber, carrying all the wast toward the river. However, this waste went out via something called an "oubliette". Sometimes, people were put in the oubliette if they were really, really unpopular. You had to crouch down to fit, and with all the waste running through it, I can't think of many worse things to do to someone. Dungeons are seriously nasty places; nothing like the nice clean ones we usually see in the movies. Hard to imagine the Middle Ages as a bright, happy place full of princesses in silk gowns and knights in shining armor when you're down in a dungeon, learning the horrible realities of what people can do to each other. History is rarely as sanitized as the view of it we usually are presented with.

Perhaps echoing the plight of medieval peasants, finding food proved to be the most difficult part of our trip. We had to wait in a huge line, and then had to wait even longer for seating. It was worth it, though. They had a full carvery in the lower level of the castle in the domestic area. We certainly ate better than peasants: real meat, carved off a bone! The seating area was set up in the medieval dining hall style, with long wooden tables and medieval decorations. Very fun for visitors, although none of the costumed staff looked particularly thrilled to be costumed. I can understand that...

Our last adventure on the Warwick Castle trip was to join in on the Ghost Tour of the castle. Our guide was certainly one of the enthusiastically costumed. He was pretty funny as he presented ghost stories from the castle, most of them pretty tame and over-dramatized. The highlight of the tour had to be when he had members of the crowd re-enact the tale of Sir Fulk of Greville vs. The Demon Cow, and critiqued their performance. If the History Channel had more things like that on, they wouldn't need UFO Stories or Monster Quest, and people would be likely to learn more even while maintaining their apparent quota of ridiculousness. The end of the Ghost Tour conveniently brought us right to the end of our time at Warwick Castle, and we bought a few souvenirs (not much too much good selection: I was a bit disappointed), and made our way to the coaches for the ride back to Leicester. It was a full day, and I hope to return sometime. Next time, I plan to see that trebuchet fire, and will hopefully remember to charge my camera!