The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 357, February 21, 1829

The history of a fabric, so intimately connected with some of the most important events recorded in the chronicles of our country, as that of Warwick Castle, cannot fail to be alike interesting to the antiquary, the historian, and the man of letters. This noble edifice is also rendered the more attractive, as being one of the very few that have escaped the ravages of war, or have defied the mouldering hand of time; it having been inhabited from its first foundation up to the present time, a period of nearly one thousand years. Before, however, noticing the castle, it will be necessary to make a few remarks on the antiquity of the town of which it is the chief ornament.
The castle, which is one of the most magnificent specimens of the ancient baronial splendour of our ancestors now remaining in this kingdom, rears its proud and lofty turrets, gray with age, in the immediate vicinity of the town. It stands on a rocky eminence, forty feet in perpendicular height, and overhanging the river, which laves its base. The first fortified building on this spot was erected by the before-mentioned lady Ethelfleda, who built the donjon upon an artificial mound of earth. No part of that edifice, however, is now supposed to remain, except the mound, which is still to be traced in the western part of the grounds surrounding the castle. The present structure is evidently the work of different ages, the most ancient part being erected, as appears from the Domesday Book, in the reign of Edward the Confessor; which document also informs us, that it was a special strong hold for the midland part of the kingdom. In the reign of William the Norman it received considerable additions and improvements; when Turchill, the then vicomes of Warwick, was ordered by that monarch to enlarge and repair it. The Conqueror, however, being distrustful of Turchill, committed the custody of it to one of his own followers, Henry de Newburgh, whom he created Earl of Warwick, the first of that title of the Norman line. The stately building at the north-east angle, called Guy's Tower , was erected in the year 1394, by Thomas Beauchamp, the son and successor of the first earl of that family, and was so called in honour of the ancient hero of that name, and also one of the earls of Warwick. It is 128 feet in height, and the walls, which are of solid masonry, measure 10 feet in thickness. Cæsar's Tower , which is supposed to be the most ancient part of the fabric, is 147 feet in height; but appears to be less lofty than that of Guy's, from its being situated on a less elevated part of the rock.