October 20, 1999 – Another View of Warwick Castle

Today is cold and windy (but not raining). I am going with Dawna and Jim to Warwick Castle. We plan to meet at Snow Hill station at 1 PM. They are there waiting for me and we make the 1:15 PM train.

I am not sure what the 3- and 5-year-olds will make of the imposing castle. Are they too young? Will they be bored? Will they appreciate any of it? Kirsten still doesn’t feel good and sometimes just sleeps on Jim’s shoulder as he carries her around. But Anthony loves it all. He’s excited about seeing the castle. He is inquisitive and full of energy. He even makes the half-mile walk to and from the train station without a word of complaint. And Kirsten is adorable. Dean tells me later that, at that age, “She could be anywhere.” She is as interested in the castle as she is in the TV in the hotel room.

Even though I had been to Warwick earlier in September, I am happy to be going again. There is so much to see.

We visit the Ghost Tower in the Northwest corner of the castle; an area I did not explore last time. One of the 17^th century earls, Sir Fulke Greville, was a prominent Elizabethan courtier and poet. A servant, angry from believing that Sir Greville did not provide for him in his will, stabbed Greville, then, in horror at what he had done, stabbed himself. Both men died. It is said that Greville’s ghost haunts the tower that once housed his study where he composed the prophetic lines:

“If nature did not take delight in blood,
She would have made more easy ways to good.”

Before we go into the tower though, Anthony puts his head through the medieval stocks that held Warwick’s thieves and miscreants, and we take pictures.

After touring the castle, we walk through the exotic Peacock Garden, which I also didn’t see before. There is a fountain in the middle of the hexagonal garden with peacocks strutting around the beautiful roses (which are still blooming!). In addition to the live ones, large topiary peacocks perch on the boxy hedges that border the garden. Dawna, an avid gardener, loves these especially.

There is a lovely Georgian-style conservatory at the top of the garden made of pale-yellow stone with large, arched Gothic windows. In 1786, the Earl of Warwick at the time, George Greville, built the elegant hothouse specifically to display the Warwick Vase, an ancient, elaborately carved, stone urn uncovered by archaeologists near Rome. Weighing in at half a ton, it apparently caused a sensation when it was put on display at Warwick. The spectacular vase that we peer at is a replica; the original now in a museum in Glasgow.

We have some lovely views from high up in the castle.

We take the train back to Birmingham and I bid a fond farewell to Dawna and Jim, wishing that I could go with them to London tomorrow! I have enjoyed their visit more than they know. It is fun to be with someone from home, but more than that, their whole family is delightful. 

I have started a new book— Black Coffee—an Agatha Christie mystery. Today on the train to Warwick, another train passed us going in the opposite direction and for a quick moment we could see people in its carriages as our trains sped past each other. It reminded me of Agatha Christie’s 4:50 from Paddington, one of my favorites featuring a gossipy old woman on a train (the 4:50 from Paddington) who sees another woman being strangled in a passing carriage and no one believes her, except Miss Marple, of course. I am delighted that Jim knows exactly what I am talking about. Not many people do. It turns out his grandmother owned a whole set of Agatha Christie books and he’s inherited them. Black Coffee was originally a play that another author adapted into a novel in the style of Agatha Christie. It’s a bit stiff in places, but the endearing characters of Poirot and Hastings are spot on.