Warkworth Castle England Walking Tour | Stunning Medieval Castle Ruins

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Hi everybody it's Margaret here from Free Tours By Foot and today I'm coming to you from beautiful Northumberland in the North of England where today we're going to be exploring the fabulous Walkworth Castle. We've got about 900 years of history inside so we better get started. The origins of Warwick Castle are uncertain. Historians and archaeologists aren't exactly sure when the first structure was built here. But what we do know is that originally it was built out of wood not the stone that we're going to be seeing today. And the first record of a fortress on this site comes from the 12th century and it's in an important strategic location. As I mentioned, we are in Northumberland in the North of England right on the edge of the border with Scotland. So, it's very important for the English King to keep the North of the country fortified in preparation for Scottish invaders. In fact, Walkworth Castle was siege twice by the Scottish Army in 1327 Throughout its history the castle has mostly been in the hands of the prominent Percy family. The Percys were a preeminent noble family in the medieval period and it's Henry the second Barren Percy who first received this castle in 1345 And throughout the centuries it's mostly been in the hand of the Percy family but I will mention that the Percys have a little habit of rebelling against the current king. So occasionally the would be taken off them. Uh controlled by the crown before eventually somebody made amends or somebody was forgiven and it would come back into their hands. In fact today it is still owned by a member of the Percy family. Now if I have any Shakespeare fans watching if you think back to the Henry the fourth play. Henry the fourth parts 1 and two. there are scenes that take place in Walkworth Castle featuring the fourth Baron Percy who was named the Earl of Northumberland and his son Henry Hotspur. In fact there's a scene that takes place right here at this gatehouse. Now this gatehouse has had a little bit of work done to it in the 1800s. there was quite a bit of repair work done in the Victorian era to the castle but that doesn't mean we're not going to see a lot of original stonework because we absolutely will. So originally there would have been more aeroslits at the top because this was one of the most important parts of the castle of course. This needed to be heavily defended as this was the main entrance. Originally this would have been a draw bridge but you can see today, we're going to walk right over it and we can see down below where there would have been a moat to fortify the entrance. You'll see here the arrow slits where archers would be able to fire out more along here. And you can also see down there on that tower as well. Um and they feature in design. What some people refer to as a fishtail. Can you see how it gets bigger at the bottom? And that means the archers could aim downwards. If you had somebody who was coming in from the moat you'd still be able to get a nice and accurate shot. The gate that we see here today is not what the gate would have looked like in its original day. It would have had a huge port callus too in fact and we can see where the pork callus would have come down. You can see all the way to the top there. So there would have been one pork callus on this side. And another up here. So, when you came inside, they dropped the gate behind you. There'd be one down in front of you and you'd be trapped right in the middle and very handy. You've got some nice arrow slits in here as well in case they decided they didn't like what you'd come here to say. Here we come. Stand the front. Isn't this beautiful. I'm going to give you the full view around here. See the sun's behind the walls. There's a little dark. There's the gate house we just came in. There's where you buy your tickets in the gift shop run by the very friendly people from English Heritage. And there you have it. Now this castle is built in what we call the mot and Bailey style. And to just make it simple a mot and Bailey style castle is a mound with a keep or strong hold on the top and a curtain wall around it. This is a typical medieval style castle that you see a lot of in England. My camera's a little off center. There we go you guys. So is a classic design but what makes Walkworth Castle a little bit different is that the keep was designed with comfort in mind normally castle keeps were part of the fortification and yes the duke where the Earl might spend time inside however it wasn't necessarily built as a home but this keep was which makes it very unique amongst castles in England. In fact even from this view you can see a bit of the detailing on the windows. Just these little extra touches that show it as a place of residence rather than just a military stronghold. Now today this area is relatively quiet but in its hay day in the 1314 1500s this castle would have been absolutely bustling. In addition to the Percy family and all of their staff and servants you could have any other number of people here in this courtyard and there were a few different buildings to cater to this. So over here would have been a great hall which we're going to explore shortly. Kitchens to the right and an unfinished chapel which would have been over here. And in addition in this area we would have had extra lodgings and stables for everybody's form of transport sort of like the garages of being 14 or 1500s. And when I say that this could have been full of people. I'm talking about perhaps merchants, blacksmiths, traders, people making bows and arrows. You could have butchers as well. Uh you'd also potentially have visiting armies. If the army was traveling through the country and needed a safe place to rest we're better than inside the castle walls. So at any time you could have hundreds of people staying here and if you were lucky you might be blessed with a visit from the king or queen themselves and of course the king or queen would travel with dozens if not hundreds of servants and all of them would need to be accommodated here. So there would have been numerous temporary wooden structures built along out in this area as well. So it would have been a real hub. Now I mentioned to you that there were previously buildings over here. So over here would have been a chapel. On record we still have it as an unfinished chapel and most of it was taken down by the 16th century, Which isn't unusual actually because the Percy family themselves had their own chapel which I'm going to show you later. So it's important to recognize that what I'm showing you now a chapel, a hall, and a kitchen that was for everybody out here. But there's multiple kitchens a hall and a chapel inside there as well. So speaking of the great hall, we'll come over here and get a look. Here's a beautiful tower entrance. You can even see some of the detail left around the window ledge there. All the way up into the sky. Come through here. These beautiful arched doorways and you can see there would have been many floors above us. As you can see by the windows in the tower. Hear the entrance. To that chapel. And over here the seller. And again you can see doorways up there. So there would have been two if not three stories here. Shall we see what's through the archway? A dead end today. And what would have been a wall here would separate the cellar from the great hall. There would have been two entrances to the great hall here. One would have been for the Percy family themselves who would have come down from the keep and the other would have been for everybody else who would have come in through that archway right there. In fact this hall that we're standing in could even be divided into two so that the Percy's and their honoured guests could spend time in here and wouldn't have to see everybody else who'd come inside to have their meals as well. And if you can imagine at that time you know the walls would have been draped in tapestries. The ground would have been covered in reeds and rushes. There would have been music playing. And in this room here the buttery which despite the name is actually where the drinks were kept. Uh in medieval England the glasses or the containers that held wine and often beer were known as butts. So the buttery was not necessarily anything to do with dairy as you and I would say it today but in fact to do with drink. And this section here, the pantry. And from here we can see the length of the hole. So, I mentioned to you that everybody else would come in through a different entrance and this is where they would come in. This is the Lion Tower and the Lion Tower is quite cool because you can see the remains of a spiral staircase right there. And I will show you why it's called the Lion Tower in just a moment so I know. As we come through here, get a good look at that vaulted ceiling. Absolutely lovely. And as we come out, we'll turn around and we will see the Percy Lion. The symbol of the Percy family. Now when it was built this lion and the crests and coat of arms above would have been decorated. So it would be brightly coloured with paint or maybe even gilding and gold. And there's an identical lion on the north side of the keep which we can't see from here but would be overlooking the village on the other side. See if we can get a good look of him up here. I'll zoom in for you. He's seen better days. A very old lion indeed. So there would have been the hall. And here a kitchen. Come through. And you can see medieval drainage here. So all the slot from the kitchens would have come out there. Out into the moat below. Okay, bear with me here. Image system. All the kitchen slot going down into the moat. Surrounding the castle. Looking for the easiest way out. Here we go. Because now we're going to head to that fabulous keep. Smaller later added entrance to the castle. And again the remains. Of what would have been a staircase. And you'll notice the entrance to the keep is not on ground level. There's stairs and the stairs were here again as a little bit of security because if for example, the castle was under siege and the Percy family were hiding inside, they could dismantle the staircase or knock it down just to make it a little bit more difficult to breach the keep. Now it's a bit dark inside. We do have some sun so I'm hoping it'll look alright on the camera for you. A view of where we've just come from. There's the gatehouse. We enter. That's right. As we come in, I'm taking you straight through here just so you can get a view. Um just out onto the coast there. Let's see if I can there we go. Focus for you. We're looking out to the edge of the North Sea. So, as you enter, through the doors here. This would have been a waiting area. And the main entrance was through here and I'm going to take you straight up the main steps. So we'll come back down and explore down here later. Beautiful views out the windows here. And we come out now into the great hall. Now, we're lucky in that most of the keep here at Walkworth Castle is intact. Not a lot of castles are as complete as this and I know it seems strange to be saying that when there's no roof on the top but it's worth mentioning that most medieval castle roofs were built out of wood which means it would be incredibly rare for one to survive but you can see where it would have been based on the ledges at the top there would have been a few different stories to the great hall. A number of different levels. So down here is where everybody would dine. You'd have again tapestries on the walls, rushes and reeds on the ground. Those rooms through there is where all the goods were brought in which I will show you in a minute. And here would have been the fireplace. Now before the 14th century fires in the great hall actually stood just right in the middle of the floor and there was a hole in the roof for the smoke to come out but by the time this hall was built they began putting them into the walls with chimneys at the top. Now if you look up here we can see there's a couple openings. So up there would have been a ledge and that's where the musicians would have been to play music for the Perses and their guests. So they'd be up there and the party would be happening down here. Get a nice view around. So we will be back here momentarily. They have it set up so you just walk one way through the castle. So, I'm going to follow the rules but my favorite part of the castle, isn't that beautiful? View of the village. My favorite part of the castle is this. If you're ever looking for me, that's where you'll find me. So, these stairs go down to the wine cellar and I'm going to show you where they come out a little bit later on in the tour. So, the idea was that there was direct access to the wine cellar so that the wine could be brought in for a party. Now off at the great hall. The chapel. And you can see here beautiful detailing on the windows that we'll get closer to. So this would have been the chapel for the Percy family. But they also would have let distinguished guests worship here as well. And you can see there would have been two different floors. If you see these little ledges that stick out those would have been the foundations for the next level and there a doorway. And that doorway have been for the Percy family because they would have worshiped up at the top there in a private chapel which had its own fireplace that you can see halfway up the wall and then their distinguished guests would worship down here where we're standing and you can see up here would have been the altar and my gimbal's a little off center. Give me one second. Especially as the ambulance is going past. I'll wait till you can hear me. There we go. We come up here. You can see the detailing in that window. Beautiful and then these sconces here is one on either side. You can just about make out their angels. I think this one's a little bit easier to see there. You see the face and the wings on either side. Isn't that lovely that it survived some 700 years And here built into the wall a font. And then this little room here is where the priest would have kept their vestments. And today it overlooks that staircase going down to the wine cellar. But this would have been for use by the priest. Here you get a good view of the river out to the coast. We'll come down here. And relieve the chapel And we come into the private rooms. So this was a bit like a sitting room for the Percy family or living room depending on which country you're from and what you like to call it. So this was a relatively speaking intimate space. This is where you would have had the finest furnishings. It's where the family would have spent time together and also where they would have welcomed their most distinguished of guests. And just as with the chapel you can see there were two floors here. And you can see where the roof of this floor and the floor of the room above would have been as we come around. Again multiple fireplaces. One there. And the main one here. So yes these were the family rooms. And there's a small anti-chamber off to the side that I will show you. She comes here. So an even smaller more intimate chamber. You can see again two floors. And I've got a treat for you all. As we come through here. If you watched my tower video you'll know that I've always gotta point out the loo. Now it's a bit dark but you can just about make it out. So yes this was called the garter robe. Uh and you'll find garter robes which you and I today would call a bathroom or a toilet in most medieval castles. Lots of them are still standing. And they would have of course basically just been built over a hole in the ground. No indoor plumbing in the medieval era. I'm afraid. Straight into the mo is charming but the name gartero was actually quite interesting and it used to be believed that the foul odors of a toilet would help repel disease and pests so people would often hang their robes or their clothes in the toilet with the hope that they wouldn't attract any nasty bugs. I don't think I'll take their word on that one. Here you can see off into the Northumbrian countryside. Beautiful views today. So we come back through. This is the family chamber that we talked about and saw. And now we continue back into the great hall. So there's that entrance to the wine cellar on the right. There would have been a raised dias on that side there which is where the Percys themselves would have sat to overlook everybody. And here are the three entries required. And rooms you need to have a successful feast. Through here we have two kitchens. This is the first one. This is refer to as the small kitchen. Which makes me feel a little bit bad about my personal residence. And we can see there would have been one fireplace here. Luckily a smaller fire kept here in a Brazil. And to the left of it a bread oven. Let's see. Oh yeah the lighting's alright. You can see it. So hot ash from the fire would have been put in here with the bread. And then on the other side this is where water would have been kept. You can see it's stone at the bottom. So the water and the wood and the logs for all of the fires that would be here would have had to be brought up by servants. And the water would have been kept hot. In there. And another bit of drainage. Out to the outside of the building. And then the second great kitchen through here. So we see this one is much much larger. Two huge open fires big enough that they would be roasting entire animals which is sounds a bit grim to say but if you're feeding dozens and dozens of people you need a lot a lot of food and roasted meat was always on the table and this is where it would have been cooked and you can see an even bigger drainage here for all the what they keep call slop. Here at the castle to go down and out of the building. See all around here. So you can just imagine there would have been dozens of people in this space. Huge fires absolutely roaring. Entire lamb. Entire cows being cooked here over the spits. Bread baking in the oven. Water boiling over there. Slop on the floors. It would have been absolute chaos. But this really was the hub. Of the castle. And lots of little antique chambers to look at likely used for goods storage. Because of course you need tableware, glasses, and plates and knives and trunchons. The whole kit. And adjacent to the kitchen. We come in here. The buttery and the pantry. Nice and cold in here. And remember I mentioned butts were the names of the bottles that held the alcohol the wine and the beer and they weren't necessarily made out of glass some of them were made out of wood or even leather. They all would have been kept in here. You can see we do have a wooden ceiling here although it's not original. You might be able to hear people walking around above. I hope it's people. You never know when you might come across a ghost in a medieval castle. And here the stairs down to the beer cellar where we will be going shortly of course and you can see two doors here and this would have been for servants to come in one and out the other. So, it was a one-way system which a lot of us are quite used to after the events of twenty 20. So one last look at that great hall. The center of the upper building and all the residential buildings or the residential rooms excuse me would have been up on the second floor. So the chambers of the Percy family which are gone. I promised you we'd go down to the beer cellar and that is how we will get down to ground level. Look at these stairs here. Let's see if I can make it without terrible injury. This castle is cleverly built. There's many different stairways and staircases all built again for ease of access not necessarily strictly for defense. We come down here into the beer cellar. So again, the beer here could be taken directly up those stairs right into the kitchens into the great hall for the feast. Now, just through here, the sunshine isn't really on our side but when the sun is shining, you can see the sunlight coming through that window and it also exists on two more sides here you can see because of course being down somewhere like this in the basement would be incredibly dark lit only by candle light but having a somewhat open tower that ran right through the center of the building meant that natural light could come down here to the lower levels Again another thought for the people who would be staying here. Now these rooms here make up the wine cellar. You can see. Nice and cold. Although some people did prefer to drink their red wine warmed. And in some castles sadly not this one. But I'll find one to show you guys. At some castles there's even little windows cut into the fireplaces where the bottles of wine would be set to warm up before they were poured. Just something I'm definitely going to install in my own house. And remember back at the beginning there were the stairs down to the wine cellar. And here they are. So this would take us right back up to the great hall. And through here we have one of the pages rooms. Now Pages were sort of knights in training. Uh assistant to current knights. Uh if you were landed gentry like the Percy family. Perhaps you might want one of your children to go on to become a knight. And to train they would need to apprentice with the knights who were already fighting soldiers. So you might send your son to another Earl or a Duke's house where they could be in the employee of the Knights based there and this is how they would learn if anybody happened to see the sword in the Stone the Disney animated film of course Arthur there is a young page And through here the guard room. And the remains of a font. You can see it's quite imposing all this stonework. We've got more stairs here to the side. And around. Yet another garter robe. Now, down here, look at that. This isn't I will say a medieval door that we're looking at. It is relatively recent but this was the door to the dungeon which was exactly as dark and miserable and scary as you might imagine right underneath the stone foundations of the castle. A terrible place to be imprisoned but People were kept here on the orders of the king. The Percy family were quite powerful in the North of England and they could be trusted most of the time to do the king's bidding. So again, the entrance hall the rooms off that we've just explored. The great hall up those stairs and the missing roof and the top story the chambers of the Percy family. And we come back out. Oh, it started to rain but that's alright because we're almost done with our visit. Pop my hood on. Again. Another view here. And we will come down and we can see down here remains of all the smaller buildings where work could be done. Remember I mentioned you'd have blacksmiths and arrow makers. They would have workshops down here. And there's also an entrance to a tower which I'm not sure if it's open to us. Let's investigate. This tower is called the gray mare's tail tower. You can still roughly speaking walk through the buildings that would have stood here. You can again see where the second floor would have been. In the case of the grey mare's tail tower. Even the floor on top of that. Oh and look at this view of the keep from here. Oh and for reference that flag you see at the top that is the flag of English heritage and English heritage is a charity it's responsible for looking after 400 more than 400 evenuh important historical sites in England this just happens to be one they do amazing work keeping these buildings open to the public and no I don't work for them just to be clear Now, this part of the building, these bricks here, this is one of the oldest parts of the castle. These brick do come from the 12th century. I said these brick, these stones, excuse me, come from the 12th century. Um whereas most of the other curtain wall that we're looking at come from the 1300s. And we have another postern gate here. To the side. So this gate wouldn't necessarily have been used, most people would have had to come through the gatehouse and explain who they were and why they were here before they were allowed inside. Into this area as I mentioned earlier is where the staples would have been. Let's come up. And get a nice view of the outer ward. We've got another tower in the corner here. Now you can see the little village opposite. Imagine living in one of those houses and this is the view out your front window. I wouldn't mind it. Well everybody. It is now coming to the time where we have to say goodbye to the Percy family. Goodbye to the castle. And head back out. That drawbridge. So again my name is Margaret. If you enjoyed the video please like and share. If you would like to see more videos like this please let me know. I am open to potential requests. Um If you are travelling to London make sure you take a look at our website we'll include the link below and book a tour with us. We're also offering tours in Birmingham. We're going to soon to be offering tours as well in York and Canterbury and virtual tours coming to you not only from all over this country but from countries all over the world. So I hope you guys had a good time today. One final view at the gatehouse before we say goodbye and head back to the 2-1st century.
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Channel: Free Tours by Foot
Views: 15,552
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Keywords: warkworth castle, warkworth, northumberland, warkworth castle hermitage, warkworth castle tour, england, castles in england, castle tours england, united kingdom, medieval castle, england castles, english castle, inside a medieval castle, best castles in england, english castles
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Length: 45min 58sec (2758 seconds)
Published: Fri Feb 11 2022
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