Warwick

Well here we are, on the eve of the last night of our first tour, and about to head over to the pub for the farewell dinner.  We left Leeds but didn't get a tour of it as I thought we would, so I can't tell you anything about it except that 750,000 people live there.

So on we drove through Robin Hood country, not much of a Forrest left!  This is the general area, however.

Further on we drove, there is always some sort of castle or other impressive building to 

pop out at you.

On we drove to end up at Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare.  This is Anne Hathaway 's cottage, the wife of Shakespeare.

Again, more impressive architecture.

As you can imagine, there is William Shakespeare everywhere!  After lunch here, our next destination was Warwick Castle.  This castle is kind of like a theme park, but the castle is genuine.  This is one view.

We got there about 2.30 so only had time for two "shows".  The first was the birds of prey in which they flew 3 different kinds of bird, flying the birds, telling us about their habits, what prey they aim for, and how the bird catches the wind currents to fly.

 

Before the next event, we found time to climb the various towers and admire the stunning views.

There were also in the castle, dioramas of the Battle of Barnett where the Houses Of York and Lancaster were fighting. These dioramas detailed preparations for battle by children, men and women, showing them in life size.

They showed the men making arrows, armour, and ammunition, and women doing such things as making the banners for battle.  Everyone had a job.  Sometimes small children as young as seven went into the battlefield to collect arrows, including pulling them out of dead bodies for recycling!

The final show was the firing of the trebuchet. This machine was used during castle siege and was able to fire huge stones approximately a kilometre away, depending on the size of the machine.  The machine was able to fire burning objects which was quite useful when their targets had wooden buildings and thatched roofs.  Two men ran  inside the inner wheels which raised the  wooden weight between the two wheels and lowered the arm of the catapult .  It was then loaded with the ammunition of choice, the stops were pulled out, the weight fell and the arm threw the missiles at the enemy. Today it was loaded with a burning ball. Very impressive!