Historic Places in Warwickshire

Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire is one of the most visited towns in England outside London, its fame resting entirely on its status as the birthplace of William Shakespeare, the greatest writer in the English language and the most performed playwright in the history of world theatre. The town has been attracting visitors in significant numbers since the eighteenth century, when the celebration of Shakespeare's genius first made his birthplace a destination of literary pilgrimage, and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust now manages five houses associated with the playwright and his family. The Birthplace on Henley Street is the most visited of the Shakespeare properties, the medieval timber-framed house where William was born in April 1564 and where his father John Shakespeare pursued his trade as a glover and civic dignitary. The house was purchased by public subscription in 1847 and saved from demolition, an act of cultural preservation ahead of its time that established the model for the National Trust and the historic building preservation movement that followed. The interior has been furnished and interpreted to recreate the domestic environment of an Elizabethan tradesman's family of middling prosperity. Anne Hathaway's Cottage at Shottery, a short walk from the town centre, is the farmhouse where Shakespeare's wife grew up and is one of the finest surviving examples of a substantial English thatched farmhouse of the sixteenth century. Hall's Croft, the home of Shakespeare's daughter Susanna and her husband the physician John Hall, and Nash's House adjacent to the foundations of New Place, Shakespeare's final home that was demolished in the eighteenth century, complete the principal heritage properties. The Royal Shakespeare Company's theatres on the Avon provide world-class Shakespeare performance in the town throughout the year.

Warwick Castle is one of the finest and best-preserved medieval castles in England, a formidable fortress on a sandstone outcrop above the River Avon in the county town of Warwickshire that has been continuously developed and occupied from its foundation by William the Conqueror in 1068 to the present day. The combination of authentic medieval architecture, substantial surviving interiors and a comprehensive visitor experience that brings the castle's history to life through immersive displays and living history events makes it one of the most visited historic sites in the Midlands. The castle's military architecture is genuinely impressive. The curtain wall running between the great towers of Caesar's Tower and Guy's Tower encloses a substantial area of courtyard that gives an accurate impression of the scale of a major medieval fortress, and both towers survive to their original height, providing elevated viewpoints over the Avon and the surrounding town from their battlements. The great gatehouse and barbican form one of the most complete and best-preserved medieval entrance sequences in England, their layered defences of drawbridge, portcullis and gate towers illustrating the depth of thinking that went into denying entry to hostile forces. The castle's history is inseparable from that of the Earls of Warwick, whose family the Beauchamps acquired it in the early fourteenth century and developed it into the great fortress visible today. Richard Neville, the sixteenth-century Earl of Warwick known as the Kingmaker for his decisive role in the Wars of the Roses, was one of the most powerful subjects in England during the 1460s and his influence over the events leading to Edward IV's accession and then deposition gave the castle a brief moment of national political centrality. The Victorian apartments, developed by the Earls Brooke and Warwick in the nineteenth century, contain a distinguished collection of paintings, furniture and armour displayed within rooms furnished to a high standard that reflects the castle's continuing life as an aristocratic residence through that period.