Warwick Castle is one of the premier tourist attractions in England and has been designed as a full day destination, rather than a 30 minute walk around crumbling ruins. You have the option of staying overnight too so it can become a multi day trip and there is certainly enough to do.
Visiting
As a high profile tourist attraction, Warwick Castle caters extremely well for visitors. There are several large car parks and plenty of eating options onsite. Naturally they want to keep you there and spending for as long as possible!
To assist in this there are a huge number of activities, shows and attractions for all ages. A decent mix of theatre and education.
My Experience
On the day we visited in summer (!) 2019 it was raining pretty much the whole time so we didn’t actually see much of the outside. That was a real shame as the castle has been restored and repaired and is potentially quite spectacular.
Despite the rain there was still enough to keep us going for a good chunk of the day. I was concerned that the castle theme would be dumbed down but there was actually a lot of excellent information, as well as attractions for families. The official site here shows details of what is available at Warwick Castle.
We managed to do a wall walk and see views both of the bailey and the defences and towers. There was an archery display taking place just outside the walls and each tower had an exhibition/display of some kind so we learned a lot about the castle and the Earls of Warwick as well as the political and military history of the period. The armoury in the main hall was excellent, rivaling the Tower of London’s.
We saw the trebuchet and jousting arena but as the summer rain was in full swing by then we didn’t get close to either. We did however have lunch in the cafe and a coffee too before we left. The car parks are a reasonable walk away, maybe 10 minutes, so be aware of that.
The castle really was a pleasant surprise. I was expecting very little history and a sort of glorified Hollywood costume drama. There obviously is an entertainment aspect to the site but there is certainly no shortage of educational information too.
Photo Gallery
History
The castle was built a couple of years after the Norman Conquest as a timber motte and bailey affair before being converted to stone in the next century. It was steadily developed as a fortress and then more lavish living accommodation added in the seventeenth century.
The castle is basically a large shell keep with a fourteenth century barbican and additional towers. It is actually a very pretty building with flourishes added to the defences to display the power of the Earls of Warwick. After the events of the Wars of the Roses the castle slowly fell into ruin and the title became vacant for about 80 years before being granted to John Dudley. He did nothing to restore the castle and the advent of the English Civil War saw a flurry of repairs by Robert Greville.
The Royalists besieged the Parliamentarian garrison unsuccessfully in 1642 and over the next three hundred years the Greville family remodelled and rebuilt the castle until they sold it to the Tussaud Group in the 1970’s.
The site is now owned by the Merlin Group and run as an entertainment venue.
References
The Wikipedia page with far more information on the castle and its history is here.