Warwick Castle

There has been a fortification here since 1068 and the stone castle is largely fourteenth century, with Caesar's Tower and Guy's Tower on the river front among the best-preserved military architecture of the period in England. The Beauchamp and Neville earls held it, including Richard Neville, the Warwick who made and unmade kings in the fifteenth century. In 1978 the Tussauds group bought it and it has been run as a commercial attraction since, now under Merlin, with wax figures in the state rooms, birds of prey displays, a dungeon experience and jousting. A trebuchet built in 2005 on the riverbank, about eighteen metres tall and among the largest working examples in the world, throws projectiles a couple of hundred metres in daily firings when conditions allow.

What you actually see

• The trebuchet - an eighteen-metre working siege engine fired on the river meadow.
• Caesar's and Guy's Towers - fourteenth-century towers on the Avon front.
• The ramparts walk - a circuit of the walls with 530 steps in total.
• The state rooms - Victorian interiors populated with wax figures.

When to go

April to October for the full programme of shows, which is most of what the ticket buys; winter opening is reduced and many displays stop. Booking online well ahead is much cheaper than the gate price.

Honest expectations

This is run as a theme attraction rather than a heritage site, with paid extras on top of an already high entry price and queues for the popular shows. The trebuchet does not fire in wet or windy weather. School holidays are extremely busy.

Nearby

Warwick town and the Lord Leycester Hospital are a short walk; Kenilworth and Stratford lie close.