THE UPPER OR WARWICKSHIRE AVON.
The Avon flows on through the pretty, restful scenery of Warwickshire, which has been rendered classic by the authoress of “Adam Bede,” twisting in great curves gradually more and more to the south. It leaves, some three miles away from its right bank, the spires and ancient mansions of Coventry—once noted for its ribbons, now busy in making cycles; it sweeps round Stoneleigh Abbey, with its beautiful park and fine old oaks, where a comparatively modern mansion has replaced a Cistercian monastery. On the opposite side, half a league away, are the ruins of Kenilworth Castle, with their memories of Leicester and Queen Elizabeth. It glides beneath Guy’s Cliff, where the famous Earl, the slayer of the Dun Cow, after his return from the Holy Land, dwelt in a cave as a hermit, unrecognised, till the hour of his death, by his own wife, though she daily gave him alms. A little further, and a short distance away on the left, on the tributary Leam, is the modern town of Leamington, which began a career of prosperity just a century ago on the discovery of sundry mineral springs. Then the Avon sweeps by the foot of the hill on which stands the old town of Warwick. The site is an ideal one—a hill for a fortress, a river for a moat—and has thus been occupied from a distant antiquity. Briton, Roman, Saxon—all are said to have held in turn the settlement, till the Norman came and built a castle. The town retains two of its gates and several old timbered houses, one of which, the Leicester Hospital, founded in 1571, is perhaps the finest in the Midlands; and on the top of the hill, set so that “it cannot be hid,” is the great church of St. Mary. It is in the Perpendicular style, more or less, for the tower and nave were rebuilt after a great fire in 1694, the choir escaping with little injury. Two fine tombs of the Earls of Warwick are in this part, but the glory of the church is the Beauchamp Chapel, with its far-famed altar-tomb and effigy of Richard Beauchamp, the founder. He died in 1439; and near him lie the Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, and other members of the house of Dudley.
WARWICK CASTLE.
Warwick Castle is one of the most picturesquely situated mansions in England. It stands on a rocky headland, which descends almost precipitously to the Avon. One of our illustrations (p. [111]) may give some notion of the beauty of the view over the rich river-plain; the other (p. [109]) indicates the aspect of the castle itself. A mediæval fortress has been gradually transformed into a modern mansion, yet it retains an air of antiquity and not a little of the original structure. It incorporates portions of almost all dates, from the Norman Conquest to the present day. The oldest part is the lofty tower, called Cæsar’s tower, which must have been erected not many years after the victory at Hastings. The residential part mostly belongs to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though alterations and additions have been made, especially during the restoration, which was rendered necessary by a lamentable fire in 1871. We must leave it to the guide-books to describe the pictures, antiquities, and curiosities which the castle contains—relics of the Civil War, when it was in vain besieged by the king’s forces, the sword and porridge-pot of the legendary Guy, and the famous Warwick Vase, dug up near Tivoli at Hadrian’s Villa. But the view from the windows is so beautiful that the visitor will often find a difficulty in looking at pictures on the walls; he will be well rewarded if afterwards he stroll down towards the old mill by the riverside.
