Day thirty-four

November 2

I can’t believe that it’s November already. I’m almost to the point where I’m counting the days down rather than up. I’m having a ton of fun here but I’m also glad that I am only here for one term. I love it here but I miss home and friends at home and Otterbein in general.

So today we had our second OSAP trip. We went to Warwick Castle. 

The town of Warwickshire was founded in pre-Saxon times and developed under the protection of the castle.

In the late 11^th century the town had a population of about 1800. Most of the town was destroyed by fire in 1684, but many of the stone medieval building remained. These include Lord Leycester Hospital, Collegiate Church of St. Mary, and Warwick Castle. This is though to be the finest medieval castle in England, possibly even Europe. The castle is built on a steep cliff in the town right on the river Avon. The first defenses were built in 916 for protection against the Danes. In 1066 William of Normandy built a fortress to subdue the Midlands. This included a man made mound topped with a wooden tower. Stone buildings began to replace the wooden ones in the 12^th century.

The castle has been home to the Earl of Warwick since 1088. These influential men have played major roles in many wars in England including the War of Roses, The Hundred Years War, and The Civil War. King Edward was held prisoner there during the War of Roses. During the Civil War parliament was moved to Warwick Caste for protection. Many nearby castles were demolished at this time but Warwick Castle stood strong.

When entering the castle you must walk on a drawbridge over a dry moat and through a gatehouse. Murder holes and arrow slots on either side protect this gatehouse. When you enter you are standing between two large towers. Guys tower is on the right, named after the same Guy of Warwick mentioned in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and Caesar’s tower is on the left. Both of these towers have very irregular shapes in order to allow archers varied and overlapping points at which to aim.

The first thing we did was walk through these towers. It’s over 500 steps up and back down and then up into the second and back down again. The stairs are all very steep and tightly spiraled in a clockwise direction going up. This is also a defense mechanism. Since most armies are right handed this caused the attacking army to have their sword closest to the center of the spiral with little room for moving their arm. The defending army coming down the stairs had their right arm nearer the outside of the spiral therefore giving them more swinging room for attack. Apparently the German’s had an entirely left handed army just for attacking on the way up staircases like these!

After going through the towers we headed up to the mound built by William of Normandy (more commonly know as William the conqueror). 

 the tower built there was wooden it no longer remains but the mound serves as a wonderful vantage point from which to see the whole castle at once. We also went into the dungeons. This was very creepy. Simply the fact of knowing that people actually suffered and died down there was very creepy. They also had some plaques describing different torture methods used. It’s very disturbing to see what they used to do to people. The last tour inside we took was into the main part of the castle. The inside is beautiful. There were wax figures everywhere depicting what would have been going on inside during a party for a prince. It was pretty cool to see what would have actually been going on in the castle 200 years ago. We also went through an exhibit called the kingmaker. This had a series of wax figures as well. In this exhibit they were depicting what it would take to keep the castle running. It included tailors, blacksmiths, horse trainers, soldiers, seamstresses, etc. There is also a huge trebuche in the back. Wikipedia says it's the biggest in the world (not sure how reliablle that is) it's 60 feet tall! They actually use it every day as well. We left before they did it though :-(

I thought that the day was pretty cool. I liked seeing a castle, especially one that was over 1000 years old. I was highly impressed. 

 people thought the area was too touristy and childish. Many people thought it was more catered toward children than adults. I though it was interesting none the less. There were also several scenes acted out on the lawn during the day. I stopped to watch a bit of a falcon-training exhibition as well as two men sword fighting. At the end they told us to take the pumpkins still littering the lawn from Halloween. Rebecca and I both took one and we’re planning on looking up recipes for cooking them.

After getting home Bill, Zoya, Andrea, and I went to The Red Lion for dinner. That is my favorite pub in Oxford by far. We all also decided to return in the morning for a traditional English breakfast. None of us has tried this yet and it’s only two pounds at The Red Lion. Overall it was a really great day and I would definitely recommend going at least one for anyone touring in England.