Warwick castle

Warwick Castle stands on the banks of the river Avon, just a few miles from Shakespeare’s Stratford. Many of England’s most celebrated figures, from Richard III to Queen Victoria, appear in the castle’s full and varied history and for centuries Warwick Castle was home to the mighty Earls of Warwick.

First fortified by William the Conqueror in 1068 AD, Warwick Castle later became the principal stronghold of the mighty Beauchamp warlords. As the military importance of the castle declined, the main living quarters were converted into a residence of the grandest style. The magnificent interiors date from the late 17^th to the late 19^th centuries and today most of the main fortifications have altered little from the mediaeval period. With its dark, dank dungeon, gruesome torture chamber and splendid armoury, the Middle Ages come to life at Warwick Castle.

‘A Royal Weekend Party, 1898’ by Madame Tussaud’s recreates a Victorian house party with a young Winston Churchill and the future King Edward VII. The State Rooms, including the magnificent Great Hall, contain an outstanding collection of arms, armour, furniture and paintings.

Vocabulary:

fortify- укреплять

stronghold- крепость, твердыня, цитадель, оплот

warlord- военачальник

quarters- квартира, помещение, жилище

dank- сырой и холодный, промозглый

dungeon- подземная тюрьма, темница

armoury- склад оружия, арсенал

Eastnor castle

Enriched by the Malvern Hills and surrounded by a famous arboretum and lake, this fairytale castle is as dramatic inside as it is outside.

The Atmosphere. Everyone is struck by it. The vitality of a young family brings the past to life and the sense of warmth and optimism is tangible. Eastnor, however grand, is a home.

‘Sleeping’ for the past fifty years, the castle has undergone a triumphant renaissance-‘looking better than it probably ever has’, wrote Country Life in 1993.

Hidden away in attics and cellars since the war, many of the castle’s treasures are now revealed for the first time- early Italian Fine Art, 17^th century Venetian furniture and Flemish tapestries, Mediaeval armour and paintings by Van Dyke, Reynolds, Romney and Watts, photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron.

The Princely and imposing pile’, as it was described in 1812 when it was being built to pitch the owner into the aristocracy, remains the home of his descendants. The castle contains letters, diaries, clothes and furnishings accumulated over two hundred years belonging to friends and relations who include Horace Walpole, Elisabeth Barrett Browning, Tennyson, Watts and Virginia Woolf.