Kenilworth Castle

D and I decided to visit Kenilworth Castle last Saturday, although we took D and E several times when they were younger it has been some years since I last visited and I was keen to see the Elizabethan garden. It was cold and gloomy so perhaps not the best of days to visit and we were surprised at how busy it was considering the time of year.

A castle at Kenilworth was first constructed by Geoffrey de Clinton (royal chamberlain) in the 1120's on a low sandstone hill at the junction of two ancient trackways. He built most of the Norman Great Tower and founded a priory nearby.

King John in the early 13th century constructed an outer defence of stone walls and built a dam to hold back a huge lake thus creating a formidable fortress which withstood a very long siege in 1266 which started on 21st June 1266 and only ended on 14th December of the same year.

John of Gaunt, son of Edward III, built the Great Hall and in the 15th century the castle was used as residence by several kings who were attracted by the hunting.

In 1563 Queen Elizabeth I granted the castle to her favourite courtier Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. He made many alterations and improvements to the castle turning it into a place where he could entertain the queen.

In 1650 the castle's fortifications were removed after the Civil War and Leicester's Gatehouse was turned into a residence by Colonel Hawkesworth (a Parliamentarian officer).

In 1958 the castle was given to the town by Lord Kenilworth and it has been managed by English Heritage since 1984.



There were some lovely trees near the castle entrance.

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The Tiltyard

A great medieval dam was built in the early 13th century which for over 400 years held back one of the largest man-made water defences in the form of a lake in Britain. It is believed in the past the dam was used occasionally as a yard where jousting tournaments took place. King Edward I attended one of these events at Kenilworth in 1279.

Mortimer's Tower

was built around 1210-1215 by King John as the main entrance through the castle's outer defences. The name may refer to Roger Mortimer (died 1282) who in 1279 organised a tournament at the castle. The castle originally had two concentric rings of defences. The inner part was probably enclosed by a 12th century stone curtain wall and the outer court was initially defended by a bank and ditch. In the early 13th century King John replaced this with a masonry wall containing towers. He also replaced the stone gate with Mortimer's Tower - a twin towered gatehouse. Between the two towers further protection was provided by a portcullis.

The Stables

built by John Dudley (father of Robert Dudley) who held Kenilworth Castle briefly between 1549 and 1553. In 1563 the ground floor contained boxes for 30 large horses and 20 geldings and above was a place to store hay and provide sleeping accommodation for the grooms. As Master of the Horse to Queen Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley must have been delighted with this stable block.

Today it houses a tearoom and exhibition.

Leicester's Gatehouse

The Keep

Lunn's Tower -

one of the wall towers built by King John around 1210-1215.

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Leicester's Building - Elizabethan State Apartments

The Norman Keep

Before exploring the castle we had a look at the very interesting exhibition on the history of the castle in the stables.

Stone "Trebuchet" balls recovered from the castle grounds which would have been fired from a Trebuchet machine (during the 1266 siege).

A canopied niche which is a fine carved piece of masonry dating from the early 14th century which probably came from the collegiate chapel established in the outer court by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster 1314-1322.

It was quite dark in the exhibition so I didn't take too many pictures but, bearing in mind my current interest in stone masonry, I did take a few photos of these. These pieces would have been carved by a stone mason nearly 700 years ago in the early 14th century. Masons who worked at the castle in the late 13th and the 14th century for earls and dukes of Lancaster would have been very skilled. John of Gaunt in the 1370's for the rebuilding of the castle employed a Henry Spenser as his chief mason together with a master carpenter. Local masons were also employed as shown by similarities between Kenilworth Castle and work at St Mary's church Warwick.

The next two pieces of masonry probably formed part of a masonry frieze and 71 may be part of a date.

Pieces missing but this could have been a lion.

A drawing showing the castle and large lake around 1540.

Leicester's Gate House

built as a new entrance to the castle by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in the 1570's. Following the Civil War in the 1640's it was turned into a private house for a Colonel Hawkesworth. The gate house was open so we went inside for a quick look.

The alabaster fireplace is dated 1571 and probably came from Queen Elizabeth I's privy chamber.

A beautiful carved piece of furniture - Elizabethan??

On the top floor of the gatehouse is an excellent exhibition with the theme of Leicester and Elizabeth (no photos allowed).


Garden next to the Gatehouse

The Norman Keep or Great Tower

Much of the basic structure was built by Geoffrey de Clinton 1124-1130. Initially the two storey keep would have been the main castle residence. In the late 16th century it was modified by Robert Dudley. Following the Civil War the Keep was deliberately destroyed to stop it falling into enemy hands.

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In 1563 Queen Elizabeth I gave the Kenilworth estate to her favourite Robert Dudley and in the following year she made him Earl of Leicester and baron of Denbigh. Dudley first visited the castle in 1566 accompanying the queen on one of her tours of the country. On 3 later occasions he provided lavish entertainment for her at the castle. He built special accommodation to house her in royal style and by the time of her final visit in 1575 (when he hoped to persuade her finally to marry him) he had created a privy garden to the north of the Keep. This visit lasted 19 days from 9th to 27th July 1575 and it was her longest stay at a courtier's house during any of her progresses around the country.

This garden was recreated by English Heritage in 2009 and the design was based on a description by Robert Langham who was an eye witness of the royal visit together with archaeological and historical research. The garden, as did Robert Dudley's, contains a terrace, arbours, a marble fountain, aviary and giant obelisks. The fountain is the centre piece (not in operation when we visited) and is made of white carrara marble, like the original, from Tuscany, Italy.

The heraldic Bear and Ragged Staff adapted by the Dudleys from Beauchamp Earls of Warwick.

We entered the Keep

Looking towards the Great Hall

The main kitchen was built by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster in the 1370's and was in use until the 17th century. You can still make out the hearth with bread oven and there is a beautiful example of herringbone brick work.

The Strong Tower

The Great Hall built by John of Gaunt. The hall itself would have been on the first floor above stone vaulted cellars. The windows are very tall and the delicacy suggests cathedral windows. There were 6 fireplaces in total.

You can climb up quite high in the Strong Tower - I got to the first platform and already had legs like jelly (due to not liking heights!) so the views from the top were taken by D.

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Another photo of the Great Hall

Leicester's Building

built in the early 1570's by Robert Dudley to provide private lodgings for the queen and her servants. Queen Elizabeth I stayed in this building in 1572 and 1575.

You can now explore quite a bit of this building via a walkway - again the height thing put me off so photos again courtesy of D.

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I really would like to explore the castle and garden again (and perhaps visit more outside the castle) later in the year so D and I ended up joining English Heritage (something I have been thinking of doing for some years) and, of course there are lots of other delightful EH places to visit in the Midlands and when we are on holiday. I also bought a rather lovely carved box featuring knights with dragons on the lid.

Last time we were in Kenilworth we had lunch at a charming old-fashioned tea room called "Tea for Two" which is very close to the castle so before going home we visited for hot chocolate and cake.

As my camera battery had gone flat! this image was taken with the Olympus dslr e-420 in 2014 on our last main visit to Kenilworth


Just to prove Timothy came along. The camera battery went flat as I was planning to take some pictures of him towards the end of the castle visit!

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*D - Photos taken by D with the Canon SX50HS bridge camera

Rest of photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera.


Reference

English Heritage Guide Book to Kenilworth Castle and various information boards around the castle

A Visit to Marsh Lane Nature Reserve

Marsh Lane Nature Reserve is located near Berkswell and is adjacent and in the flood plain of the River Blythe - a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Some of you may recall seeing a section of the River Blythe when I've visited Brueton Park in Solihull in the Spring. A company (now known as CEMEX) began extracting sand and gravel over a 75 acre site in 1995 and extraction ceased in 1999. Following this the land was restored by what was then called RMC Aggregates and the owners of the land - Packington Estates. The site was opened to permit holders in July 2001.

The habitat consists of three main pools, several smaller pools, reedbeds, woodland, grassland and some agricultural land - one field is used to grow crops for finches to feed on. There are eight hides. At May 2018 the site bird list stood at 203 birds.

I became a member about 5 or 6 years ago following conversations with several birders at Brandon Marsh NR who all praised the site. It has the huge advantage of being only about 20 minutes from home by car and there are several car parks all behind padlocked gates so it was somewhere I felt happy about birding alone before B retired. The other good feature about the reserve is that it is always quiet - yesterday we saw just one other person. Sadly, I haven't been so often recently for one reason and another but I do hope to visit more this year (the site is good for butterflies and dragonflies in the summer).

The light wasn't good for photography being very dull and gloomy and there aren't too many bird photos - they were either too distant from the hides or too flighty out in the open!



The feeders in the car park were full of Blue and Great Tits, Gold and Greenfinches, Robin, Blackbird and Reed Bunting.

We set off along the North Causeway which contains two hides overlooking pools/reedbeds.

Gorse was flowering profusely and there is an old saying that when gorse is out of bloom kissing is out of fashion which refers to the fact that gorse is always in flower somewhere throughout the year.

View of Car Park Pool from one of the reedbed hides - we saw a pair of Little Egrets here.

Walking towards Oak Hide - we say two Jays flying across the grassland.

Railway Pool from Oak Hide where we saw Teal, Tufted Duck, Shoveler, Mallard, Lapwing and Coot.

Distant Lapwings and a pair of

Mallard.

While walking by Railway Copse we saw a flock of Lesser Redpoll feeding on Silver Birch seeds and Alder cones. I nearly managed a photograph but a train nearby frightened the flock off as the camera was focusing!

A pair of Bullfinches were feeding on these berries - again too distant for a photograph.

Railway Pool

Siden Hill Wood - I've never been to this part of the reserve which has a separate entrance and car park. Perhaps a visit this year.............

A railway line runs along one side of the reserve - which reminds me that the dreaded HS2 line will cut across a corner of the reserve I believe (not the part we visited yesterday.

We retraced our steps and popped into Car Park pool hide where we saw Grey Heron, Mute Swan, Cormorant, Wigeon, Black-headed Gulls, Moorhen and Goosander.

It was a very enjoyable couple of hours birding with 25 species seen - a good start to the 2019 year list :)



All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera.