Warwick Castle is a medieval castle in Warwick, England, founded by William the Conqueror in 1068. The original wooden motte-and-bailey castle was rebuilt in stone in the 12th century by the de Beaumont family, the castle’s constables who became the earls of Warwick. During the Hundred Years War, the facade opposite the town was refortified, resulting in one of the most recognisable examples of 14th-century military architecture. The de Beaumont line died out in 1449, and the castle passed between different owners during the 15th-century Wars of the Roses.
Despite falling into decreasing disrepair, the castle was used as a stronghold until the early 17th century, when it was granted to Sir Fulke Greville by James I in 1604. Greville converted it to a country house . The castle was held by the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War, and was unsuccessfully besieged by the Royalists in 1642. The Grevilles redeveloped the property during the 18th century, landscaping the grounds and developing more Gothic features; they were made the Earls of Warwick in 1759. Further work followed in the 19th century, including by the architect Anthony Salvin.
The castle had seen growing levels of tourists throughout the 19th century, and numbers continued to swell in the 20th century. In 1978, the Greville family sold the property to the Tussauds Group, who turned the castle into a permanent tourist attraction. In the 21st century, it is one of the most popular UK castle attractions, receiving over half a million visitors each year.
History
Background
An Anglo-Saxon burh, or fortified town, was established on the site in 914; with fortifications instigated by Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great. The burh she established was one of ten which defended Mercia against the invading Danes. Its position allowed it to dominate the old Roman road of the Fosse Way, as well as the river valley and the crossing over the River Avon.
11th and 12th centuries
During the Norman conquest of England, William the Conqueror established a motte-and-bailey castle at Warwick in 1068 to maintain control of the Midlands as he advanced northwards. The castle’s position made it strategically important in safeguarding the region against rebellion. Four houses belonging to the Abbot of Coventry had to be torn down to make way for the development. William appointed Henry de Beaumont, the son of a powerful Norman family, as the constable of the castle. In 1088, Henry de Beaumont was made the first Earl of Warwick. He had founded the Church of All Saints within the castle walls by 1119; the Bishop of Worcester, believing that a castle was an inappropriate location for a church, removed it in 1127–28. A water-powered mill in the castle grounds was probably built at this time, although it proved vulnerable to flooding.
During the early 12th century, Henry I became suspicious of Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick. To counter the earl’s influence, Henry bestowed Geoffrey de Clinton with a position of power rivalling that of the earl. The lands he was given included Kenilworth, where Clinton founded a new castle of comparable size, cost, and importance to Warwick, around 8 kilometres (5 mi) to the north.
At the end of the of civil war known as the Anarchy, Roger’s wife was tricked into believing that her husband was dead, and surrendered control of the castle in 1153 to the invading army of Henry of Anjou. According to the Gesta Regis Stephani, a 12th-century historical text, Roger died upon hearing the news that his wife had handed over the castle. Henry, who became King of England shortly afterwards, later returned the castle to the earls of Warwick, as they had been supporters of his mother, Empress Matilda, during the conflict.
In the second half of the 12th century, the motte-and-bailey was replaced with a stone keep castle. This new phase took the form of a shell keep with all the buildings constructed against the curtain wall. During the Barons’ Rebellion of 1173–74, the Earl of Warwick remained loyal to Henry II, and the castle was used to store royal provisions. The castle and the lands associated with the earldom passed down to the Beaumont family.
13th and 14th centuries
When Thomas de Beaumont, 6th Earl of Warwick died in 1242, the castle and lands passed to his sister, Margaret de Beaumont, the Countess of Warwick. Her first husband, John Marshal, died soon after, and while she looked for a suitable husband, the castle was placed in the control of Henry III. When she married John du Plessis in December 1242, the castle was returned to her. During the Second Barons’ War of 1264–67, William Maudit, 8th Earl of Warwick, supported the royalist faction, but the castle was seized in a surprise attack in 1264 by the forces of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, operating from Kenilworth Castle. According to 15th-century chronicler John Rous, the walls along the northeastern side of Warwick Castle were slighted – damaged to put them beyond military use – so “that it should be no strength to the king”. Maudit and his countess were taken to Kenilworth Castle and were held there until a ransom was paid.
After the death of William Maudit in 1267, the title and castle passed to his nephew, William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick. Following William’s death, Warwick Castle passed through seven generations of the Beauchamp family, who, over the next 180 years, were responsible for most of the additions made to the castle. In 1312, Piers Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall, was captured by Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick, and imprisoned in Warwick Castle, until his execution on 9 June 1312. A group of magnates led by the Earl of Warwick and Thomas, the Earl of Lancaster, accused Gaveston of stealing the royal treasure.
Under Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl, the castle defences were significantly enhanced in 1330–60 on the north eastern side by the addition of a gatehouse, a barbican, and a tower on either side of the reconstructed wall, named Caesar’s Tower and Guy’s Tower respectively. The Watergate Tower also dates from this period. By 1398 the castle’s mill had been relocated to just outside the eastern castle walls, on the west bank of the River Avon, although this site too proved vulnerable to floods.
15th and 16th centuries
The line of the Beauchamp earls ended in 1449 when Anne de Beauchamp, the Countess of Warwick, died. Richard Neville became the next Earl of Warwick through his wife’s inheritance of the title. During the summer of 1469, Neville rebelled against Edward IV of England and imprisoned him in Warwick Castle. Neville attempted to rule in the King’s name; however, constant protests by the King’s supporters forced the Earl to release Edward. Neville was subsequently killed in the Battle of Barnet in 1471, fighting against the King during the Wars of the Roses.
Warwick Castle then passed from Neville to his son-in-law, George Plantagenet, the Duke of Clarence. George Plantagenet was executed in 1478, and his lands passed onto his son, Edward Plantagenet; however, Edward Plantagenet was only two when his father died, so his lands were taken in the custody of the Crown. He was placed under attainder by Henry VII of England, and so could not inherit the throne, being held by the King for fourteen years in the Tower of London until he was executed for high treason in 1499, for allegedly conspiring to escape with the ‘pretender’ Perkin Warbeck. Edward was the last Earl of Warwick of the title’s first creation.
In the early 1480s, Richard III instigated the construction of two gun towers, Bear and Clarence Towers, which were left unfinished on his death in 1485; with their own well and ovens, the towers were an independent stronghold from the rest of the castle, possibly in case of mutiny by the garrison. With the advent of gunpowder, the position of Keeper of the Artillery was created in 1486.
When antiquary John Leland visited the castle some time between 1535 and 1543, he noted that:
… the dungeon now in ruin standeth in the west-north-west part of the castle. There is also a tower west-north-west, and through it a postern-gate of iron. All the principal lodgings of the castle with the hall and chapel lie on the south side of the castle, and here the king doth much cost in making foundations in the rocks to sustain that side of the castle, for great pieces fell out of the rocks that sustain it.
While in the care of the Crown, Warwick Castle underwent repairs and renovations that required around 500 loads of stone. The castle, as well as the lands associated with the earldom, remained in Crown care from 1478 until 1547, when they were granted to John Dudley with the second creation of the title the Earl of Warwick. When making his appeal for ownership of the castle, Dudley complained that the fortification was in poor condition: “the castle of itself is not able to lodge a good baron with his train, for all the one side of the said castle with also the dungeon tower is clearly ruinated and down to the ground”.
Formal gardens belonging to Warwick Castle were first recorded in 1534.
Warwick Castle had fallen into decay due to its age and neglect, and despite his remarks Dudley did not initiate any repairs to the castle. Queen Elizabeth I visited the castle in 1566 during a tour of the country, and again in 1572 for four nights. A timber building was erected in the castle for her to stay in, and Ambrose Dudley, John’s son, left the castle to the Queen during her visits. When Ambrose Dudley died in 1590 the title of Earl of Warwick became extinct for the second time. A survey from 1590 recorded that the castle was still in a state of disrepair, noting that lead had been stolen from the roofs of some of the castle’s buildings, including the chapel.
17th century
Sir Fulke Greville was granted Warwick Castle by King James I in 1604, and was converted into a country house. Fulke Greville spent over £20,000. renovating the castle. In the 17th century the grounds were turned into a garden, and spiral paths added to the castle motte. Although in 1601 Fulke had remarked that “the little stone building there was, mightily in decay … so as in very short time there will be nothing left but a name of Warwick”, the work transformed the castle. According to William Dugdale, a 17th-century antiquary, this became “a place not only of great strength but extraordinary delight, with most pleasant gardens, walks and thickets, such as this part of England can hardly parallel”. In 1628, Fulke was murdered in Holborn by his manservant, Ralph Haywood, who stabbed the baron twice after discovering he had been left only £8,000 in his master’s will. Fulke died from his wounds four weeks later.
Whilst the castle was undergoing repairs, it was peripherally involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The conspirators involved awaited news of their plot in Dunchurch in Warwickshire. When they discovered the plot had failed they stole cavalry horses from the castle stables to help in their escape. When the title of Earl of Warwick was created for the third time in 1618, the Greville family were still in possession of Warwick Castle.
The castle’s defences were enhanced in the 1640s to prepare the castle for action in the English Civil War. Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke, was a Parliamentarian, and Royalist forces laid siege to the castle. Warwick Castle withstood the siege and was later used to hold prisoners taken by the Parliamentarians.
Under Robert Greville, the Baron Brooke, Warwick Castle’s defences were enhanced from January to May 1642 in preparation for attack during the First English Civil War. The garden walls were raised, bulwarks—barricades of beams and soil to mount artillery—were constructed and gunpowder and wheels for two cannons were obtained. Robert Greville was a Parliamentarian, and on 7 August 1642 a Royalist force laid siege to the castle. Greville was not in the castle at the time and the garrison was under the command of Sir Edward Peyto. Spencer Compton, the Earl of Northampton, Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire commanded the Royalist force. William Dugdale, acting as a herald, called for the garrison commander to surrender the castle, but he was refused. The besieging army opened fire on the castle, to little effect. According to Richard Bulstrode:
… our endeavours for taking it were to little purpose, for we had only two small pieces of cannon which were brought from Compton House, belonging to the Earl of Northampton, and those were drawn up to the top of the church steeple, and were discharged at the castle, to which they could do no hurt, but only frightened them within the castle, who shot into the street, and killed several of our men.
The siege was lifted on 23 August 1642 when the garrison was relieved by the forces of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and the Royalists were forced to retreat to Worcester. After the Battle of Edgehill in 1642 – the first pitched battle of the English Civil War – prisoners were held in Caesar’s and Guy’s Towers. During the Second English Civil War prisoners were again held at the castle, including those from the Battle of Worcester in 1651. A garrison was maintained in the castle complete with artillery and supplies from 1643 to 1660, and at its strongest it numbered 302 soldiers.
With the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the English Council of State ordered the castle governor to disband the garrison and hand over the castle to Robert Greville, 4th Baron Brooke. The state apartments were found to be outmoded and in poor repair. Under Roger and William Hurlbutt, master carpenters of Warwick, extensive modernization of the interiors was undertaken, 1669–78. To ensure that they would be in the latest taste, William was sent down to Dorset to make careful notes of the interiors recently finished at Kingston Lacy for Sir Ralph Bankes to designs by Sir Roger Pratt. On 4 November 1695 the castle was in sufficient state to host a visit by King William III.
18th and 19th centuries
Francis Greville, 8th Baron Brooke, undertook a renewed programme of improvements to Warwick Castle and its grounds. The 8th Baron Brooke was also bestowed with the title Earl of Warwick in 1759, the fourth creation of the title. With the recreation of the title, the castle was back in the ownership of the earls of Warwick. Daniel Garrett’s carried out work in 1748; Howard Colvin attributed to him the Gothick interior of the Chapel. Lancelot “Capability” Brown had been on hand since 1749. Brown, who was still head gardener at Stowe at the time and had yet to make his reputation as the main exponent of the English landscape garden, was called in by Lord Brooke to give Warwick Castle a more “natural” connection to its river. Brown simplified the long narrow stretch by sweeping it into a lawn that dropped right to the riverbank, stopped at each end by bold clumps of native trees. A serpentine drive gave an impression of greater distance between the front gates and the castle entrance.
Greville commissioned Italian painter Antonio Canaletto to paint Warwick Castle in 1747, while the castle grounds and gardens were undergoing landscaping by Brown. Five paintings and three drawings of the castle by Canaletto are known, making it the artist’s most often represented building in Britain. Canaletto’s work on Warwick Castle has been described as “unique in the history of art as a series of views of an English house by a major continental master”. As well as the gardens, Greville commissioned Brown to rebuild the exterior entrance porch and stairway to the Great Hall. Brown also contributed Gothick designs for a wooden bridge over the Avon. He was still at work on Warwick Castle in 1760. Timothy Lightoler was responsible for the porch being extended and extra rooms added adjacent to it in 1763–69. and during the same years William Lindley provided a new Dining Room and other interior alterations. In 1786–88 the local builder William Eboral was commissioned to build the new greenhouse conservatory, with as its principal ornament the Warwick Vase, recently purchased in Rome.
Francis Greville commissioned Lancelot Brown to re-landscape the castle grounds; he began working on the grounds and park in 1749 and had completed his work by 1757, having spent about £2,293 on the project. Started in 1743 and originally known as Temple Park, Castle Park is located to the south of the castle. Its original name derived from the Knights Templar, who used to own a manor in Warwick. Houses around the perimeter of the park were demolished and the land they stood on incorporated into the park. Attempts to make profits from the park in the late 18th century included leasing it for grazing, growing wheat, and keeping sheep.
In 1802 George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick of the new creation, had debts amounting to £115,000. The earl’s estates, including Warwick Castle, were given to the Earl of Galloway and John FitzPatrick, the Earl of Upper Ossory, in 1806, but the castle was returned to the earls of Warwick in 1813. The Great Hall was reroofed and repaired in Gothic taste in 1830–31 by Ambrose Poynter. Anthony Salvin was responsible for restoring the Watergate Tower in 1861–63. The castle was extensively damaged by a fire in 1871 that started to the east of the Great Hall. Although the Great Hall was gutted, the overall structure was unharmed. Restoration and reparations carried out by Salvin during 1872–75 were subsidised by donations from the public, which raised a total of £9,651. A water-powered engine room used for the generation of electricity was built on the site of the former flour mill in 1894.
Robert Marnock created formal gardens in the castle’s grounds in 1868–69.
Individuals had been visiting the castle since the end of the 17th century and this grew in importance through the 19th century – indeed, the author Jane Austen has her lead characters visit the castle in her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice. In 1858 Queen Victoria visited the 4th earl with great local celebrations. By 1885 it would appear the visitors were becoming a nuisance as the earl closed the castle to visitors, causing consternation in the town. A local report stated, “One day last week eight American visitors who were staying at one of the principal hotels left somewhat hurriedly in consequence of their being unable to gain admission to the castle”. It soon re-opened again and by the end of the century had a ticket office and was employing a permanent guide.
20th and 21st centuries
By 1936, Arthur Mee was enthusing not just that “these walls have seen something of the splendour of every generation of our [English] story”, with rooms “rich in treasure beyond the dreams of avarice” but also that “their rooms are open to all who will”. The collection of armoury on display at Warwick Castle is regarded as second only to that of the Tower of London.
Through the 20th century successive earls expanded its tourism potential until, in 1978, after 374 years in the Greville family, it was sold to a media and entertainment company, the Tussauds Group for £1.3 million, who opened it as a tourist attraction. Tussauds performed extensive restorations to the castle and grounds. In 12 of the apartments open to tourists since the Tussauds Group takeover, a number of wax figures of historic individuals is presented. The persons depicted were guests at the 1898 weekend party hosted by Frances Countess of Warwick; the principal guest was the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. The furniture in those rooms is said to be authentic to the period.
In 2001, Warwick Castle was named one of Britain’s “Top 10 historic houses and monuments” by the British Tourist Authority; the list included Tower of London, Stonehenge, and Edinburgh Castle. Warwick Castle was recognised as Britain’s best castle by the Good Britain Guide 2003. Around this time it was getting in excess of half a million visitors a year.
After the March 2007 sale of the castle’s owner, The Tussauds Group, to The Blackstone Group, the site was operated by Merlin Entertainments, a division of that corporation. In July of that year, Warwick Castle was sold to the Prestbury Group but continued to be operated by Merlin under a renewable 35-year lease.
Architecture
Warwick Castle is situated in the town of Warwick, on a sandstone bluff at a bend of the River Avon. The river, which runs below the castle on the east side, has eroded the rock the castle stands on, forming a cliff. The river and cliff form natural defences.
The current castle, built in stone during the reign of King Henry II, is on the same site as the earlier Norman motte-and-bailey castle. A keep used to stand on the motte which is on the south west of the site, although most of the structure now dates from the post-medieval period. In the 17th century the motte was landscaped with the addition of a path. The bailey was incorporated into the new castle and is surrounded by stone curtain walls.
When Warwick Castle was rebuilt in the reign of Henry II it had a new layout with the buildings against the curtain walls. The castle is surrounded by a dry moat on the northern side where there is no protection from the river or the old motte; the perimeter of the walls is 130 metres (140 yd) long by 82 metres (90 yd) wide. The two entrances to castle are in the north and west walls. There was originally a drawbridge over the moat in the north east. In the centre of the north west wall is a gateway with Clarence and Bears towers on either side; this is a 15th-century addition to the fortifications of the castle. The residential buildings line the eastern side of the castle, facing the River Avon. These buildings include the great hall, the library, bedrooms, and the chapel.
Caesar’s and Guy’s Towers are residential and may have been inspired by French models, such as Bricquebec. Both towers are machicolated and Caesar’s Tower features a unique double parapet. The two towers are also vaulted in stone on every storey. Caesar’s Tower contained a grim basement dungeon; according to local legend dating back to at least 1644 it is also known as Poitiers Tower, either because prisoners from the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 may have been imprisoned there, or because the ransoms raised from the battle helped to pay for its construction. The gatehouse features murder holes, two drawbridges, a gate, and portcullises – gates made from wood or metal. The towers of the gatehouse were machicolated.
The facade overlooking the river was designed as a symbol of the power and wealth of the Beauchamp earls and as the historian Stephen Friar observes, would have been “of minimal defensive value”; this followed a trend of 14th-century castles being more architectural statements of powerful power than primarily military sites.
The gardens cover 2.8 square kilometres (690 acres).
Visiting the castle
Bibliography
- Allison, K. J.; Dunning, R. W.; Jones, S. R. (1969). “The Borough of Warwick: Introduction”. In Stephens, W. B. A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 8: The City of Coventry and Borough of Warwick. Victoria County History. pp. 417–451.
- Brown, R. Allen (2004) . Allen Brown’s English Castles. (New ed.). Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.
- Buttery, David (July 1987). “Canaletto at Warwick”. The Burlington Magazine. 129 (1012): 437–445.
- Crouch, David (1982). “Geoffrey de Clinton and Roger, earl of Warwick: new men and magnates in the reign of Henry I”. Historical Research. 60: 113–24.
- Davis, H. W. C. (October 1903). “The Anarchy of Stephen’s Reign”. The English Historical Review. 18 (72): 630–641.
- Friar, Stephen (2007) . The Sutton Companion to Castles (Revised ed.). Sutton Publishing.
- Fuller, Thomas; Nuttall, P. Austin (1840). The History of the Worthies of England. Thomas Tegg.
- Greville, Frances Evelyn Maynard (1903). Warwick Castle and its Earls from Saxon Times to the Present Day. Hutchinson.
- Hamilton, J. S. (Summer 1991). “Piers Gaveston and the Royal Treasure”. Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies. 23 (2): 201–07.
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- Hyams, Edward (1971). Capability Brown and Humphry Repton. J M Dent & Sons.
- Jacques, David (Summer 2001). “Warwick Castle Grounds and Park, 1743–60”. Garden History. 29 (1): 48–63.
- Keightley, Thomas (1839). The History of England. Whittaker and Co.
- Liddiard, Robert (2005). Castles in Context: Power, Symbolism and Landscape, 1066 to 1500. Carnegie Publishing Ltd.
- Mee, Arthur (1936). Warwickshire. The King’s England. Hodder & Stoughton.
- Pettifer, Adrian (1995). English Castles: A Guide by Counties. The Boydell Press.
- Potter, K.R. (ed) (1955). Gesta Stephani – The Deeds of Stephen. Thomas Nelson.
- Thornbury, Walter (1878). Holborn: The Northern Tributaries. Old and New London: Volume 2. Cassell.
- Stephens, W.B. (Editor) (1969). A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 8: The City of Coventry and Borough of Warwick. Institute of Historical Research.
Attribution
The text of this page was adapted from “Warwick Castle” on the English language website Wikipedia, as the version dated 3 November 2018, and accordingly the text of this page is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Principal editors have included Nev1, Wetman and RobinLeicester, and the contributions of all editors can be found on the history tab of the Wikipedia article.
Photographs on this page are drawn from the Wikimedia, the Yale Centre for British Art, and Flickr websites, as of 3 November 2018, and attributed and licensed as follows: “Warwick Castle May 2016“, author DeFacto, released under CC BY-SA 4.0; “Warwick Castle – The Mound“, author DeFacto, released under CC BY-SA 4.0; “Warwick Castle – Caesar’s Tower 2016“, author DeFacto, released under CC BY-SA 4.0; “Warwick Castle – Guy’s Tower 2017“, author DeFacto, released under CC BY-SA 4.0; “Warwick Castle’s Bear and Clarence Towers“, author Andrew Griffiths, released under CC BY 2.0; “Warwick Castle Gatehouse“, author DeFacto, released under CC BY-SA 4.0; “Chapel warwick castle 8089“, author Peter K. Burian, released under CC BY-SA 4.0; “Antonio Canaletto’s depiction of the castle’s south facade” (Public Domain); “DSC_6705_6_7_tonemapped“, author Simon Cozens, released under under CC BY-NC 2.0; “Warwick armor display 104“, author Peter K. Burian, released under CC BY-SA 4.0; adapted from “Warwick Castle Plan” (Public Domain).
