A Warwick, a Warwick...

Warwick castle is reputed to be one of the best pieces of castle entertainment outside London. It's also just an hour from Oxford (as so many things are - lucky us!), so Ants and I hopped a train this morning and took ourselves up to see it.

It's VERY touristy, and cost a bomb, but I have to say it was worth every penny... The grounds are massive, even though they're right in the centre of town, and still walled in as they would have been in days of old. Walking in via the pedestrian entrance, we made our way along a steep winding path that might once have been a coach road in... certainly the moment when you round a bend and see the castle in all its grandeur is designed to impress, and could have come straight from a Philippa Gregory novel.

Said to have been first built by Alfred the Great, Warwick has seldom been a royal palace (except when it was confiscated after the fall of the Plantagenets and the demise of Dudleys in Elizabethan times). As it's been used almost continuously as a residence, there it's been continuously meddled-with and remeddled-with, but you can still follow the evolution of the place through the centuries. The towers are still lofty, the dungeon and torture exhibits chillingly creepy and the trebuchet (apparently the world's largest), really impressive, even at a distance. If the 'Kingmaker' history feels a little contrived, the waxworks by Madame Tussauds (who run the palace now), do a wicked job of bringing workchambers and stables to life.

The Kingmaker, by the way, is a big deal up here. The 16th Earl of Warwick - who won his title by marrying a chick who wasn't allowed to hold it in her own right - was a descendent of the house of York and is said to have been influential in swinging the crown from the red rose of the Lancastrians to the white rose of York. Later, he changed his mind and, such was his influence (he was the wealthiest man in britain, outside the immediate royal family, at the time) that he succeeded in bringing down Edward IV (over a woman, what else!, and having first beheaded the King's father in law) and restored Henry VI to the throne in 1470. The whole gory story isn't terribly well explained at the castle - I've borrowed once again from Wikipedia for this entry! - or maybe I just have a lot still to learn about this period of history...

We watched a pale wintry sun set from the top of the battlements and I defy anyone to find such a moment lacking in romance or beauty (except for the fact that it was only 4.30pm at the time!). We're contemplating making a return journey for one of their Kingmaker feasts... apparently friends of our from the Half Moon occasionally feature in the cast...