Warwick Castle stands on a sandstone cliff above the River Avon, in the town of Warwick. One of the finest medieval castles in England, it is a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and today it is among the country’s most popular historic attractions.
The founding of Warwick Castle
There has been a fortification on this bend of the River Avon since 914, when Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great and Lady of the Mercians, raised an earthwork burh here as a defence against Viking raids. Ethelfleda’s Mound still survives within the castle grounds.
Following the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror built a motte-and-bailey castle on the site in 1068. In 1088 he granted the castle and the title Earl of Warwick to Henry de Beaumont, also recorded as de Newburgh, and it remained the seat of the Earls of Warwick for generations.
Warwick was one of only five places in England licensed for jousting. Henry II had banned tournaments on the grounds that they needlessly injured knights whose skills were needed in war, but his son Richard I, under an order known as the Conflictus Gallicus, permitted jousting in those five places on payment of a licence fee, so that English knights could match the reputation of their Continental rivals.
The stone castle
The original timber motte-and-bailey was rebuilt in stone from the 12th century onward. The most impressive surviving work dates from the 14th century, when the side of the castle facing the town was refortified during the Hundred Years’ War (1337 to 1453). This fine example of medieval military architecture still stands today.
Entry to the inner courtyard is through a gatehouse in the curtain wall that still keeps its old portcullis. Some of the wall towers rise as high as 40 metres, among them the great Caesar’s Tower and Guy’s Tower. The keep stood at the centre of the north wall, flanked by the Clarence Tower and the Bear Tower, and was designed to repel attack both from outside and from mutiny within. Most of the residential buildings ran along the eastern wall above the river, where the thick curtain wall gave them added protection.
Warwick and the Wars of the Roses
By the 15th century the castle had passed, through marriage, to the Beauchamp family and then to Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. A leading Yorkist, Neville switched his support between Henry VI and Edward IV to such effect that he earned the name “the Kingmaker”. He was killed at the Battle of Barnet in 1471, after which the earldom passed to George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence.
The castle also saw darker episodes. Piers Gaveston, the favourite of Edward II, was held at Warwick and executed nearby in 1312 on the orders of Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, whose resentment of Gaveston’s influence over the king had turned to open hostility.
The Greville family and the country house
In 1604 James I granted the by-then neglected castle to Sir Fulke Greville, who spent a fortune converting the fortress into a comfortable country house. The Greville family held Warwick for the next three and a half centuries and were made Earls of Warwick in 1759.
During the Civil War, Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke, held the castle for Parliament and prepared it to withstand a Royalist siege in 1642. In the following century Francis Greville, later 1st Earl of Warwick, carried out a Gothic restoration of the interior and commissioned Lancelot “Capability” Brown, from 1750, to lay out the grounds in the naturalistic style for which Brown became famous.
Visiting Warwick Castle
The Greville family sold Warwick Castle in 1978 to the Tussauds Group, and since 2007 it has been operated under lease by Merlin Entertainments. It is now one of Britain’s leading historic attractions, set in around 64 acres of grounds beside the Avon.
Visitors can explore the Great Hall and State Rooms, climb Caesar’s Tower and Guy’s Tower for views across the town, and see the Castle Dungeon. Among the set-piece attractions are the Falconer’s Quest bird-of-prey display and a full-size working trebuchet, while the medieval-themed Knight’s Village offers overnight lodges and glamping. Jousting takes place in the grounds during the summer. Current opening times and ticket prices are on the castle’s website.