Summer Days in Shakespeare Land

by Charles G. Harper

He would be a courtly, and perhaps also a tedious, writer who should essay to fully describe Warwick Castle, with its many suites of state-rooms, its gothic stone-vaulted servants’-hall, and its terraces, ponds, and gardens, together with the conservatories and that famous Roman antiquity, the so-called “Warwick Vase,” found at Hadrian’s Villa, near Rome in 1770, and purchased by the dilettante George, second Earl, from Sir William Hamilton. Great improvements have been made here in the last few years at the cost of “a little damming and blasting,” as was remarked at the time.

Past the melancholy flymen who linger in the broad roadway opposite the entrance to the Castle, and wear jaundiced looks as though it were years ago since they had had a fare and expect it to be years yet before they will get another, you turn to the right into Mill Lane, narrow street of ancient houses, leading down to the river and to the site of that ancient mill where the feudal lords had their corn ground.

The magnificence of state-rooms, the lengthy parade of family portraits, the beauty of the gardens, and the trimness of well-kept lawns do not serve the really cultivated visitor’s turn in Warwick Castle. He pays his two shillings and is herded through with many others, a little browbeaten by the stale declamation of the gorgeous lackeys and by a very indigestion of sightseeing. It is not a medieval fortress he has seen, but a private residence. In Mill Lane, however, you come into nearer touch with realities. Here, in this by far the most picturesque and unspoiled part of Warwick, where the bowed and time-worn brick or timber-framed houses are living out their life naturally, something of the ancient contrast between subservient town and feudal fortress may be gathered, softened down, it is true, by the hand of time. Cæsar’s Tower is viewed at its best from the lower end of the lane, and looks from this point of view the noblest and the sternest tower the forceful military architects of the Middle Ages have given us, and well worthy of the great name of Cæsar long ago conferred upon it by some unknown admirer of its dignity and massive beauty. It was somewhere about 1360 when Cæsar’s Tower first arose upon the rocky bluff in which its foundations go deeply down. It was then called the Poictiers Tower. The purpose of this extremely strong and cunningly-planned work just here is lost to the modern casual observer, but if a keen glance is directed to the Avon flowing so closely by, it will be observed that although Mill Lane is now a lane butting up against the river bank and leading nowhere, the ruins of a very substantial stone bridge that once crossed the broad stream at this point are seen. This formerly carried the high road from Warwick to Banbury, and when still in use brought the possibility of attack upon the Castle at this angle very near, and therefore to be provided against by the strongest possible defence. Hence those boldest of machicolations overhead, those arrow-slits in the skilfully-planned battlements above them, and that extraordinary double base with the bold slopes, seen in the accompanying illustration; a base whose purpose was to fling off with a tremendous rebound into the midst of an enemy the stones, the molten lead and pitch, and the more nasty, but not so lethal missiles with which a besieged garrison defended themselves. This base is quite solid rock, faced with masonry. In the upper part of it is seen the small barred window that admits a feeble light into the dungeon already described. To-day the elms have grown up to great heights beside Cæsar’s Tower and assuage the grimness of it, and the only sounds are the cawings and gobbling noises of the rooks in their branches, or the unlovely cries of the Castle peacocks which strut across the lane in all their glory of colour.

The tower rises 106 feet above its rocky basement. Those old military architects who designed and built it had not the least idea they were installing a picturesque feature. They had no knowledge at all of the picturesque; but they assured themselves, as well as they could, that the safety of the Castle should be provided for. And they did it so well that history will be studied in vain for a successful siege.

This must have been a noble and imposing entrance to Warwick town in days of old. Then the road from London to Banbury crossed the ancient bridge and came up under this frowning tower and through the south gate of the town, along Mill Lane.

The bridge, originally a narrow packhorse bridge of thirteen arches and of great antiquity, was widened in 1375 and the number of arches reduced to seven; and, thus remodelled, carried the traffic until 1790. This way came of necessity every traveller from London to Warwick, and in this manner Queen Elizabeth entered the town and Castle in 1572.

Warwick Castle was in those times less secluded from the streets than it now is. The feudal owners of it were not at all concerned to hide themselves away, but when the age of sight-seeing dawned and amateurs of the picturesque began to tour the country, they began to consider how they could ensure a complete privacy. It was effected by diverting the public highway. This was done at the instigation of George, second of the Greville Earls of Warwick, in or about 1790, when the new road and bridge were made, crossing the Avon considerably to the eastward. From that modern bridge, which cost £4000, only in part contributed by the Earl, who benefited most by the diversion, is obtained that view of the Castle so extravagantly praised by Sir Walter Scott. It is the only possible view, and not a good one: one by no means to be compared with that formerly obtained from the old bridge. Sir Walter Scott therefore either did not know what he was talking about, or was too much of a courtier to reveal his own convictions.

At this same time when the road was made to take its new course, the meadows on the other side of the Avon were enclosed and thrown into the park. To complete and fully round off this story of obliterating ancient landmarks, the old bridge was wrecked in the same year by a flood. Three only of its arches remain.