Thursday, May 17, 2012

A man's home is his castle...


Today took us to Warwick Castle, originally constructed in 1068 as a fortress and then built to it's present form beginning in 1356 by the Earl of Warwick. It was given by James I in 1604 to Sir Fulke Greville and was the site of various visits from Monarchs including Edward VII around 1900.

There were various facets including several live demonstrations of siege warfare, falconry and more. The castle itself was divided into two primary areas: A medieval castle with all of it's finery from the time period and also a portion decorated as during Edward VII's time with a variety of wax figures provided by Madam Tassaud.

Here's one side of the castle...


The largest trebuchet in Europe at nearly 60 feet tall. We watched a very cool demonstration of launching a huge stone that sailed 300'-400' down range! It was a very GUY thing! ARGH! ARGH!

 

We've been reading "The Secret Garden" while we're here (already finished 'The Wind in the Willows' earlier) and Jane thought this reminded her of the door to the secret garden.


Another side of the castle...


We saw two AWESOME falconry displays with 3 bald eagles and 3 other birds. AMAZING!




ENORMOUS trees that must be hundreds of years old on the castle grounds.


Beautiful formal gardens and conservatory...




Parapets and walls everywhere...


Jane with one of the cast of castle characters...


Jane DOES love doors!


How about a sit down dinner for 120 of your closest friends?


An enormous carved buffet. This photo covers less than 1/3 of it!


Ceilings in every room were beyond ornate.



This room had Henry VIII and all of his wives- courtesy of Madam Tassuad.



Another magnificent ceiling.


The organ in the private castle sanctuary/church.


The sanctuary itself including another magnificent ceiling, engraved and sculpted detailing, stained glass, magnificent tapestries and more.


The beamed ceiling of one of the larger castle rooms...


More architectural details...




A ballista- another 'guy thing' of course!


Now we begin the 1890-1900 area with more of Madam Tassaud's wax figures.



Here's the Duke of York who's playing cards with Charles Spencer Churchill (the 9th Duke of Marlborough) who is out of sight to the right.


Various other historic characters as represented by wax...








Another magnificent door!


This was a HUGE owl found in Africa. He was only 4 months old and quite new to the world of exhibition. There was a large guide dog sitting only about 8' from him in the front of the audience and the owl became spooked by the dog (undoubtedly thinking the dog was a wolf!) and wouldn't take his eyes off him- eventually flying off to the highest point on one of the castle towers for the duration of the show! LOL!



This was a MAGNIFICENT Stellar Sea Eagle... 18 pounds with a 7'-8' wingspan. Amazing bird that swooped inches above the audience's head again and again.


Stone steps from antiquity...


Jane enjoyed the formal rose garden...


Other views of the castle...



Though well-commercialized, we had a WONDERFUL TIME at the Warwick castle and would recommend it to anyone. We were blessed to have a relatively small crowd of perhaps 600-800 as we understand in summer crowds can swell to 5000 or more!

3 comments:

Anita said...

Fantastic! Backyard Ballistics at its best!
The blue eyes on that one wax figure were striking.
I am really enjoying your trip.;)
Jane looks lovely, as always.

Charity White said...

I'm with Jane on the doors! I'm fascinated by them, too - and windows! You've seen some fabulous ones. Those wax figures are amazing!!! Wow! Another beautiful day!

Leslie said...

It just makes me so happy to see y'all enjoying all of this!!! Brings a smile to my heart. The doors are beautiful!

I've never seen wax figures like those - they look amazing.

So glad y'all are having such fun!