Kendeline Fields Farms, Claybrooke Parva, near Lutterworth, Leicestershire

With only two full days of touring in this part of the country left, we decided to spend the day down at Warwick Castle. Last year we had passed this by when we were staying south of Birmingham, and driven up one day to Coventry and another to Kenilworth Castle, the place we had the run in with the council and English Heritage over parking. We had also balked at the entry price, however I discovered this morning that our English Heritage membership would allow us a 50% discount on the full adult rate.  We had slept late so it was not until about 9.30 am that lunch was prepared and packed in the eski and we headed south along rural back roads to avoid the motorways. We took the B4455, a yellow road on our map, one generally avoided when towing, discovering we were travelling on the 230 mile long Fosse Way, an old Roman Road that linked Exeter in south west England to Leicester here in the East Midlands. 

The countryside was delightful and we continued on south until Princethorpe, where we turned toward Warwick. Near the turning we happened upon the most impressive cluster of buildings rising from the edge of woodland. This is Princethorpe College, a catholic independent school which was founded only yesterday by the history standards of the country; in the 1950s. It was only relocated to this site in 1966, a former Benedictine monastery surrounded by two hundred acres of parkland. What a spot to be educated in!

We arrived in Warwick after three quarters of an hour’s drive, and followed the brown heritage signs through to the castle’s car park, already filling fast and alerting us at once that we would need to buy a £6 token to trigger the exit gate barrier.

It’s a long walk from the car park around the walls of the castle to the entrance located in the stable area, where one queues with hundreds of others to purchase the entry tickets, then queues again to insert the ticket into the mechanised entry stile, none of these features impressing The Chauffeur much. However entering the castle gate proper, one could only be impressed by the massive structure that rose high above us and the rest of the tourists.

Warwick Castle has existed in one form or another since 914 when it was established on the site by Anglo-Saxon Ethelfreda, daughter of Alfred the Great, but its more significant development began when William the Conqueror established a motte and bailey castle in 1068, one of the many so soon after his arrival in this fair land. The Conqueror appointed Henry de Beaumont as constable of the castle and twenty years later made him 1^st Earl of Warwick. It was still not until nearly one hundred years later that the original castle was replaced with a stone structure.The castle came into the ownership of the Greville family, who held it until only late last century, in 1604, when King James I granted the castle to Sir Fulke Greville. The new owner spent £20,000 restoring the castle including the Great Hall and State Rooms.

Robert Greville, the 4^th Baron Brook, inherited the castle in 1658 and lived here until his death. It was he who was one of the six peers sent to invite King Charles II back to the throne of England in 1660. 

It was opened by the Greville family to the public for the first time in 1815. In 1871 a great fire consumed the private apartments and Great Hall. The adjoining rooms were blackened by smoke, and the remains were left smouldering for days. The Great Hall and private rooms were gutted, and it was only the outer walls of the building that survived. Within a few years, George Greville began remodelling the apartments and Great Hall, commissioning Victorian architect, Anthony Salin, to carry out the works which now reflect the tastes of Victorian society. It was George, the 4^th Earl of Warwick who was responsible for the great collection of weapons and armour displayed in the Great Hall. 

By 1885, the visiting tourists were becoming a nuisance and the castle was closed to visitors until 1900 when a ticket office and permanent guide were employed. The closure during this time does not surprise given the other life that was going on under the roof during most of that time.

George’s successor, Francis, inherited in 1894, and it was his ownership that was marked by scandalous and extravagant society parties hosted with his wife Daisy, 5^th Countess of Warwick who for some time was the mistress of Queen Victoria’s randy son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII. Francis did manage to father a couple of children, but distracted himself with a keen interest in hunting and fishing, and once hosted American President Theodore Roosevelt who shared his passion, for hunting, that is.

In 1978, after three hundred and seventy four years in the Greville family, the castle was sold to a media and entertainment company, the Tussauds Group, now called Merlin Group (which explains the number of excellent wax worked figures set about the place to demonstrate particular scenes). It apparently changed hands for the sum of £1.3 million and in 2001 was named as one of Britain’s “Top 10 historic houses and monuments” by the British Tourist Authority, and as Britain’s best castle in “Good Britain Guide 2003”, all of which explains the number of tourists today. Back then it was getting in excess of half a million visitors a year.

There is much to see and do at the castle, not least the exploration of the extensive grounds, 690 acres re-landscaped in the mid-1700s, the formal gardens reworked in the 1860s. There is a water-powered mill beside the River Avon, originally used as a mill, then to generate electricity until mains power reached the castle in 1940. 

There is a growing population of hawks, falcons and eagles, used for twice daily demonstrations, one of which we enjoyed soon after midday today. We wandered through the State Rooms and the Great Hall which was partly set out in readiness for a wedding this evening, through the historical display rooms, where modern technology is to the fore, and down in the basement where there are more displays.

There are food stalls everywhere, and shops selling souvenirs and medieval costume, and walls to be climbed when the wind is not too strong. Apparently it was today, although no more than all the days before, which would explain why hay fever has been bothering me of late.

We escaped the crowds at about 3.30pm and found our way to a Tesco Superstore, where we refuelled with diesel and purchased a few small fresh provisions, before heading home, this time just a half hour trip straight back up on the motorway.