Warwickshire

Today we ventured south to Warwickshire in search of history. Our first stop was Warwick Castle. I had visited here 30+ years ago and remembered it being quite grand, so we took a train to Warwick and then enjoyed a pleasant walk to the castle.

We passed a street that I'm sure evokes loads of laughs from visiting Americans,

and a city gate and clock tower.

When we arrived at the castle I sensed that things had changed. I was right.

We took what can only be described as the best guided tour ever (really!) during which we learned that the Castle is now owned by an investment firm and run by Merlin Entertainments. That would account for the fact that there's now a playground featuring Zog, the dragon,

a Horrible Histories maze for kids, a castle dungeon show, a jousting show and a falconry demo.

There are tours of the castle featuring different aspects of its history. We arrived just in time for "The Ultimate Castle Tour" with Andrew. I think it was originally intended to be an hour-long tour, but Andrew has decidedly made it his own with a speed-of-light delivery featuring lots of wry comedy. I would go back and take that tour again, it was so entertaining. I will spare you the history of the castle because it's easily accessed on Wikipedia, though not nearly as well-told as Andrew's version. I recorded some of it, so if you're interested, let me know & I'll post a link.

After learning the history of the place, we walked up to the motte-and-bailey castle built by William the Conqueror. He built around 700 of these motte-and-bailey castles to help keep control of England after the invasion in 1066. Once at the top, there are wonderful views of the later castle buildings and the surrounding countryside.

We then toured the stone keep castle built during the reign of King Henry II. There was a lot of history associated with the castle, but for some reason I found the addition of wax figurines rather cheesy and off-putting. I shouldn't have been too surprised to find them there since, at one point, the castle was owned by the Tussaud Group, as in "Madame Tussaud" of wax-figure fame.

This is the Queen Anne bedroom.

Queen Anne never actually visited Warwick Castle, though. It is called that because the bed in the corner is the one on which Queen Anne died. It was purchased by the Earl of Warwick in the 1770s.

There is a room which contains displays of costumes depicting various periods but which are modern re-creations worn by actors when there were actors roaming the castle in the days of interactive displays.

Repair work is being done on the Cedar Drawing Room so a great portion was covered in scaffolding.

The Red Drawing Room

The Great Hall is also undergoing repairs.

In it there some interesting pieces including a death mask of Oliver Cromwell. He visited Warwick Castle and used it as a prison during the Civil Wars. Bit of an odd thing to have on display, though, I thought.

There was a lot of armor including child's posing armor at the top. It dates from 1630 and is believed to have belonged to the future King Charles II.

Back to wax figures in the music room

and the card room

and the library.

Daisy Greville's rooms:

Daisy was quite the character. She was married to Francis Greville, 5th Earl of Warwick and was the mistress of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. She was a celebrated hostess and socialite who had a number of affairs. In fact only one of her five children was with her husband.

As we left the Castle I started thinking about when I was here the first time. I remember there being a wonderful bookshop and a gift shop with lovely things for adults. The shop now has lots of plastic toys and tacky souvenirs. I don't recall the wax figures either. Happily, there's nothing they can do to cheapen the stone walls and it was worth the trip just for the 30-minute tour with Andrew.

We walked a short distance to the stop where we boarded a bus to Stratford-Upon-Avon. I had visited there 30+ years ago and feared how it might have suffered over time. Happily, no one has figured out a way to make the Bard into a cartoon or a theme park, so my fears were for naught. That's not to say that people don't exploit the Shakespeare connection, though.

We left the bus at the McDonalds bus stop, which I found rather horrifying - not the bus stop, just the fact that it was officially named after the fast food joint - walked up the street and headed into the pedestrian zone and to Shakespeare's Birthplace. This building is one of the holdings of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Since we had spent the first half of the day in Warwick, we only got tickets to Shakespeare's Birthplace. We decided to save Anne Hathaway's cottage and New Place for another visit. There's a visitor center with some clever signage reminding visitors of all the everyday expressions that come from Shakespeare's plays. (It's worth increasing your screen size to read this sign.)

There's some basic information about Shakespeare's life and a bit about David Garrick, the famous actor who led a sort renaissance of Shakespeare's work; more about that later.

Once through the visitor's center, you cross through the garden to the house itself.

This house was owned by Shakespeare's father, John, who was a glove maker and who, at one time, was the equivalent of mayor of Stratford-Upon-Avon. As you enter the house you find yourself in a very small addition known as the cottage, which is where William lived with his wife Anne Hathaway and their children while he pursued his writing career.

It's quite tiny for a family, about 8 feet by 10 feet, one up and one down. (Sorry, I didn't get a picture.) In later years when Shakespeare bought a large house in town, this addition was where his sister Joan lived.

The first room of the main part of the house is the parlour.

This is where guests would be entertained. As was the custom in the day, it was the most lavishly furnished room. Since beds were the most expensive piece of furniture in these times, having a bed in the parlour was a way of displaying your wealth. The "best bed" was reserved for special guests who would have slept in this room.

The next room is the Hall.

This was the main living area of the house, used for the final preparation of food. Your place around the table indicated your status in the household.

At the back of the house is John Shakespeare's workshop.

It's the largest room on this floor and is where John and his apprentices would have worked. This is separated from the rest of the house by a corridor with a wide door where donkey carts would have brought the raw hides through the house to the back yard to be processed. There are windows that open on to the street where passersby could buy gloves and bags though at the time there wouldn't have been glass windows, just an opening with shutters. There are several examples of what fine gloves would have looked like in those days.

Upstairs is a room which would have been used for storage for the workshop. It was altered, probably in the Victorian era and would not have had such a high ceiling. In it is the original window from the birth room.

It was customary in days gone by to scratch one's name into the glass to show you had visited. Among the signatures are those of Walter Scott, Ellen Terry and Henry Irving. The earliest recorded date on the window is 1806. There is also signage in the room about writers around the world who would have been Shakespeare's contemporaries, including Miguel de Cervantes.

Then it's on to THE room: the family bedroom where William was born.

I asked about the wall coverings in the room and a volunteer told me that the Tudors were mad about pattern and color. If you could afford it you would have wall cloths or wallpaper. If you couldn't, you'd paint your walls, and the brighter the color, the better. Anyway, John and Mary Shakespeare would share the main mattress and their children would share the truckle bed that slid out from under the mattress, top to tail. (We get the term trundle bed from this.) Baby William would have slept in a wooden cradle, his legs swathed tightly in linen. It was believed that this would help a child's legs grow straight. Ouch.

We then walked into the extension of the house. When John Shakespeare died in 1601, he left the house to William, his oldest surviving child. William had, by this time, bought New Place so he annexed the small left-hand part of the property for his sister Joan and leased the remainder of the building to John Hiccox who extended it and used it as an inn which he called the Maidenhead, later the Swan & Maidenhead. The extension was added to the property to create a drinking parlour, cellar and a number of rooms with simple straw mattresses, providing travelers a place to sleep, often sharing mattresses. The Inn remained until 1847,

I asked how the building came to be in the care of the Shakespeare Birthplace trust and she filled in some fascinating details. After his death in 1616, the house went to his eldest daughter, Susanna who, in turn, left it to her only child, Elizabeth. She had no children, so when she died the house was passed to a descendant of Shakespeare’s sister Joan Hart. All of these people acted as landlords to the inn. In the meanwhile, Shakespeare's plays had fallen out of fashion. One reason is that when the Civil Wars broke out in 1642, Parliament closed the theatres to prevent public disorder. They remained closed for 18 years. Shakespeare might have become a theatrical footnote but for intervention of an actor named David Garrick. He was an ardent fan of Shakespeare's plays and in September, 1769, he staged The Shakespeare Jubilee in Stratford-Upon-Avon. It was a major focal point in the emerging movement that helped cement Shakespeare's legacy as England's national poet. It also helped to establish Stratford-Upon-Avon as a tourist destination.

By the middle of the 19th century the house had fallen into disrepair. Upon the death of Ann Court, the last resident, the house was put up for sale. The Shakespeare Birthplace Committee (later the Trust) was formed; among its members was Charles Dickens. They raised the £3,000 necessary to buy the property and the Trust now owns it, Anne Hathaway's house and property at which New Place one was.

The Victorians were ardent fans of Shakespeare and this idolatry spread to many other countries, including the US. In fact, there is a clock tower in the center of town that was erected and given "to the town of Shakespeare" by an American named George W. Childs, in the jubilee year of Queen Victoria's reign.

Bruce found a pub from 1470. Who knows, Shakespeare might have raised a pint there.