A castle fit for a Queen

It's true.  If English Heritage is involved in something, I want to be there.  Ever since our arrival in England and stumbling upon Dover Castle, one of the 400 places they manage, I have been deeply impressed by the organization, information, and sheer quality they have provided from Darwin's house, a preserved Roman villa, to numerous castles scattered across England.

So, when the chance presented itself to go to Kenilworth Castle, the ruins of a castle dating back to the 1200's, I was eager to visit.  Alisa, Grandma, and the kids were also willing to check it out.

Here is English Heritage's dynamic description of Kenilworth Castle:
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/kenilworth-castle/history/description/

Since they do a better job with the history of the castle than I could ever muster, I'll just tell you about our day.

Thank goodness we had our Wellies!  It was spitting a chilly rain most of the day, often with a great intensity accompanied by a gusty wind, so having our feet dry was a great comfort.

The approach to the castle's ruins took us through the jousting yard and through Mortimer's Tower, still impressive after 800 years.  As we were walking in, we heard the staccato of gunfire off in the distance.

"What is that sound?" Joey and Sammy asked.
"I'm not sure but it sounds like gunfire." I replied.
"Why would they be firing guns?" was Joey's follow up.
I didn't really have a satisfactory answer for either of us. 

We enjoyed the sweeping views of the Great Tower on the right, John of Gaunt's Great Hall in the middle and Queen Elizabeth's Pretty Good apartments on the left.

We went down to the Elizabethan gardens which the Earl of Leicester (aka Robert Dudley) had built for Queen Elizabeth's third visit to Kenilworth.  The story behind the gardens is very interesting, with a guy named Robert Langham writing extensive and descriptive accounts of the gardens.  From these writings they were able to rebuild the gardens!

Even on a rainy winter day they were still beautiful.

And the pink building noted in the back was filled with boisterous songbirds!

We explored more of the castles, going into the remains of each building.

The view from John the Gaunt's Great Hall was incredible.
Here we are looking back at the Great Tower and the gardens below.

Here are the remains of the upper and lower levels of his Great Hall, dominated by the grand window casements.

Joey and Grandma!

We explored the other end of the Great Hall as well.  

The rain started to come down more seriously so we hustled over to the tower built for Queen Elizabeth by Robert Dudley.  

Here is where the Queen's private rooms were and the view looking out.

We went up to the third and final floor above the Queen's rooms.  The views looking back at the Great Hall were amazing and I'll never forget the whistling of the wind through the empty stone window casements.

Having explored all the buildings we felt very good about heading down to the stables as the rain started to come down in earnest.

We were the only ones in these monolithic stables with wooden ceilings over 50 feet above our heads.  Every English Heritage site has a cafe and we availed ourselves to some warm drinks and soup as the rain intensified outside.

After our meal we enjoyed the exhibits at the far end of the stables as the rain started to lessen outside.  

When it was a mere mist, we went to the most recent building: Leicester's gatehouse, which was built in the 1600's.

This is an intact building and they had a great area for the kids to draw and relax.  

After several "scribble scrabbles" by Sammy and some thoughtful coloring of a castle by Joey, we were ready to make the rainy walk back to the car and return to the comfort of the Star Inn for the night.