Bank Holiday Monday

Monday's Bank Holiday had us excited for cool things to do on our vacation. We were all ready to go down to Sussex for some hiking on the South Downs- and that plan got scrapped when we forgot how far away Sussex really is. So we decided to hold that off until we registered the car. Our next idea was to go to Nottingham- there are two museums that look really cool and then there were festivities going on in Sherwood Forest. Then we discovered train tickets were over $50 each. Forget that. So, since we had a two-for-one ticket, we decided to go to Warwick Castle.

Warwick is kinda like the Disneyland of castles- and especially on a Bank Holiday, there was just event after event after event to see. Right off the bat, I was thrown into the stocks. Fantastic, I was clearly off to a great start.

Surrounding the outside of the castle, on the far side of the moat, were tents, archers, other "peasant" type people who were showing off their skills. This archer was actually really good.


Since we had tickets to the Dungeon Tour at 11:15, we had about forty-five minutes to go around and see parts of the castle. We started out with the goal- or jail- where enemies of the crown or the earl of Warwick were held.
The creepiest part was the chains hanging from the ceiling- prisoners would get fitted for body chains and then be hung from the chains from the ceiling until they bodies deteriorated. So creepy.
From the goal, we headed into the main house, seeing the chapel and the Great Hall, along with bedrooms and different color-themed hosting rooms. Henry VIII stayed here, as did Queen Anne (or at least she was supposed to before her trip got cancelled). Warwick was originally, just like Oxford, built up after William the Conqueror to be the head of the county and keep records, such as the Doomesday Book. Ever since 1068, the site of the castle has been the head of the county and numerous Earls have lived here.

Of course, you can't visit a castle or castle ruins without getting to sample the various weapons. We certainly enjoyed that.

After touring the rooms of the castle, we went to the Dungeon Tour. Many big cities- including London and York- have Dungeon tours, which are advertised as petrifyingly scary. And to some of the people, as well as the young children on our tour, it was. Basically, it was some great litle tricks and gimiicks to make you jump, actors who knew how to use their voice to catch you off guard, lots of funny jokes, weird smells, a hall of mirrors that caused us to become so turned around that we were all laughing (again, except for the little kid who was crying) and lots of good lighting and sound tricks. Overall, not super scary but pretty funny and now we've had the experience.

From there, we went to the Jester Show. Clearly for children but still absolutely hilarious. The best part was when they brought up this poor guy from the audience and made him wear a weird mouth mask and a hat with a daisy on it. The lady jester would manipulate the mouth by using a handle that behind the back of the poor volunteer and then changed her voice to pretend that the volunteer was talking. The kids didn't know any better and the adults were just crying with laughter at what she was making the man say (and then he danced....epic).

After the Jester Show, we climbed up to the top of the Castle Mound. The mound was where the original castle, built in 1068, was first built and how you get an absolutely gorgeous view of the houses and farmland of Warwickshire.

The final part of the day for exploring the castle was climbing up over 500 steps to the top of one of the towers and then follow the ramparts to the other tower, where we stopped and watched, from above, the Warwick Warrior show. Two guys demonstrated the various weapons of Medieval Warriors- including swords, pole-arms and axes. The tower was so high which again, gave a beautiful view of the surrounding town, and the castle courtyard below.



To kill some time before the Sword and the Stone show and the demonstration of the trebuchet, we went to the final exhibit, the Country Life exhibit. We walked through the later-built part of the castle which depicted a weekend party in the late 1800s. Among the guests were Winston Churchill (at age 23), his mother, the Prince of Wales, Lord Brooke (Earl of Warwick) and his wife Daisy, Mr. and Mrs. Sackville-West (whose daughter Vita would be at the heart of the London Bohemian movement) and others. Each room was adored with amazing decorations, a few live actors in character, many manequins who spoke to us about their lives, and stories about the people and events that took place. Moral of the story that we learned? Most people at this party were not faithful to their husbands/wives and nobody seemed to care.
We caught part of the Birds of Prey exhibit...
...and then got a good seat for the Sword in the Stone show. Again, totally overacted and got a great laugh out of the kids. However we were a little concerned with the story. Merlin was presiding over who would pull the sword out of the stone and the victor would marry Guinevere. Except Arthur wasn't in the picture at all- it was Mordred versus Lancelot. Did Arthur pull the sword out of the stone and later got Guinevere stolen from him by Lancelot? Perhaps they needed to do a little more research.
We decided not to stay for the trebuchet since we really didn't have anything else to do for another hour and a half. So we decided to hit the train home, getting back right before it started raining in Oxford. All in all, a really interesting and fun day.