Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick Castle

Our last proper day trip during my friend’s visit took us to the Midlands. My friend and I took an early train to Leamington Spa to meet my housemate Harry (who, for the purposes of this blog, chose the epithet “Harry the caper-denier” over much more flattering ones, like “Harry the Tall” and “Harry the rugged-chested”). Harry the caper-denier, so-called because he refuses to believe that capers are anything but olive raisins, picked us up in his car and drove us to the half-an-hour-distant Stratford-upon-Avon.

The quaint town is most famous for being the birthplace of Shakespeare, but it has another claim to fame: it is also the deathplace of Shakespeare. Since everything was still closed, we walked around and saw his birthplace, his school, the house where he lived, and the church where he is buried from the outside, before returning to the parking lot and driving to Warwick.     

Warwick Castle is yet another castle built by William the Conqueror, but a burh had been established in the same location by the ruler Æthelflæd as early as 914. The permanent exhibition, however, pays more attention to the later history of Warwick, particularly its fate as a country house. It houses, for example, the deathbed of Queen Anne, as well as – on a very different note – a porridge pot that could hold 545 litres of punch.

We wandered outside just in time to investigate the trebuchet and catch a bird of prey show. The falconer had three birds of prey on show that day: a Harris’s hawk, a white-tailed eagle, and a peregrine falcon. The white-tailed eagle, he explained, was rather ill-tempered, but there was hope that his arranged marriage to a much larger and older female eagle would bring him into line. The peregrine falcon, on the other hand, loved nothing better than to fly off and fight other peregrine falcons, though there were fortunately none within his sight that day.

After eating lunch at a local restaurant, Harry dropped us off at Leamington again, and we got back to Oxford before four o’clock. 

A statue of Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon

The bank in Stratford

a multi-storey timberframe house 

Another timberframe building

The Shakespeare Memorial Fountain

Shakespeare's Birthplace

Another Shakespeare statue

A Shakespeare mosaic above the door of the Old Bank

The same

The Old Schoolroom

The same

Shakespeare's Schoolroom and Guildhall

Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried

A tower at Warwick Castle

The interior

The detail of a wooden decoration

Another picture of the interior

Fasces on a fireplace

A marble lion

The bed in Queen Anne's bedroom

The castle chapel

The iconic Warwick bear

The view across the castle courtyard

Saint Mary's Church

Another view of Warwick Castle across the courtyard

The view of the castle from Ethelfleda's Mound

Another view of the towers

Warwick Castle above the River Avon

Perhaps the ruins of a bridge

The Conservatory Tea House

A peacock

Topiaries at the Peacock Gardens

Saint Nicholas Church