Warwick Castle

Today the Places We Will Go took us to Warwick Castle (see our Facebook page for more fun). A quick journey down the ’42’ and within about an hour we had arrived with packed lunch at the ready. Grey and chilly, autumn now clearly evident but, thankfully no rain. We have long planned to go to Warwick Castle but somehow never made it….today that changed. Once we had parked the car we found we had a 10-15 minute walk to the entrance. No real issue as the Castle is quite compact and the walk is quite pretty meandering through a wood and passed the Knights Village (you can stay over in special lodges if the fancy takes you) before the castle.

The castle is extremely well serviced and a tad on the commercial side with gift shops, sweet shops, ice cream stall and other eateries spread across the grounds. It is also has a good distribution of toilets, a godsend it turned out. The castle is undeniably impressive with the traditional ramparts and turrets. Also some excellent shows, events and guided tours. There is also a scary dungeon for those of a robust disposition, 10 and over. We did not explore this, mainly because mommy was a bit concerned…. ;o)…oh and Bugs is 6. It also has the usual selection of stately rooms and halls. These were well kept, well looked after, and ultimately provided a quite impressive display of historic weapons, armour, portraiture and decor. It was also short enough not to get boring. See our Facebook for all images.

We did not go to all the shows, however we did watch the trebuchet o’ terror, this was really splendid  show where a working trebuchet ( giant catapult) demonstrated catapulting a fireball about the size of small car (think Fiat 500) 200-300 meters. It took 4 men to get the thing going. The event was given life by an actor talking about the trebuchet’s use and history over speaker system. Really good.

After fireball hurling we sat and had our picnic, avoiding the many on-site food stops. The grounds are in a reasonably nice circular shape set next to a river so we wandered around until alighting on the Horrible Histories Maze. This was a friendly (not difficult) maze which had six conjoined themed sections which ‘celebrated’ some of the UKs biggest most horrible historical events. The Vicious Vikings; Frightful First World War, Slimy Stuarts, The Terrifying Tudours, Stormin’ Normans and the Measly Middle Ages. The kids loved this as in each area they could collect a stamp which was embossed into passport (a sheet) you pick up at the beginning. Note to parents: also a really cunning marketing ploy, as you can exchange your full sheet of stamps for a plastic badge…of course you can…and which you have to get from the main gift shop [knowing nod]. Nice try Warwick Castle.

Before we left we watched someone firing an old bow at a pumpkin. The poor chap literally circled all the way around it but did not get one proper hit. We really enjoyed the place and if it were not for a reasonable drive and a couple of snotty noses we would have stayed longer and explored some more.

 

All-in-all a very good day out.

 

James