Warwick Castle - Country House

Country House

The conversion of the castle coincided with a period of decline in the use of castles during the 15th and 16th centuries; many were either being abandoned or converted into comfortable residences for the gentry. In the early 17th century, Robert Smythson was commissioned to draw a plan of the castle before any changes were made. In 1604, the ruinous castle was given to Sir Fulke Greville by King James I and was converted into a country house. Whilst the castle was undergoing repairs, it was peripherally involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The conspirators involved awaited news of their plot in Dunchurch in Warwickshire. When they discovered the plot had failed they stole cavalry horses from the stables at Warwick Castle to help in their escape. When the title of Earl of Warwick was created for the third time in 1618, the Greville family were still in possession of Warwick Castle. Fulke Greville spent over £20,000 (£3 million as of 2012). renovating the castle; according to William Dugdale, a 17th century antiquary, this made it "a place not only of great strength but extraordinary delight, with most pleasant gardens, walks and thickets, such as this part of England can hardly parallel". On 1 September 1628 Fulke Greville was murdered in Holborn by his manservant: Ralph Haywood – a "gentleman" – stabbed the baron in the back after discovering he had been left out of Greville's will. Greville died from his wounds a few days later.

Under Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke, Warwick Castle's defences were enhanced from January to May 1642 in preparation for attack during the First English Civil War. The garden walls were raised, bulwarks – barricades of beams and soil to mount artillery – were constructed and gunpowder and wheels for two cannons were obtained. Robert Greville was a Parliamentarian, and on 7 August 1642 a Royalist force laid siege to the castle. Greville was not in the castle at the time and the garrison was under the command of Sir Edward Peyto. Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton, Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire commanded the Royalist force. William Dugdale, acting as a herald, called for the garrison commander to surrender the castle, but he was refused. The besieging army opened fire on the castle, to little effect. According to Richard Bulstrode:

... our endeavours for taking it were to little purpose, for we had only two small pieces of cannon which were brought from Compton House, belonging to the Earl of Northampton, and those were drawn up to the top of the church steeple, and were discharged at the castle, to which they could do no hurt, but only frightened them within the castle, who shot into the street, and killed several of our men.

The siege was lifted on 23 August 1642 when the garrison was relieved by the forces of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and the Royalists were forced to retreat to Worcester. After the Battle of Edgehill in 1642 – the first pitched battle of the English Civil War – prisoners were held in Caesar's and Guy's Towers. During the Second English Civil War prisoners were again held at the castle, including those from the Battle of Worcester in 1651. A garrison was maintained in the castle complete with artillery and supplies from 1643 to 1660, at its strongest it numbered 302 soldiers. In 1660 the English Council of State ordered the castle governor to disband the garrison and hand over the castle to Francis Greville, 3rd Baron Brooke. The state apartments were found to be outmoded and in poor repair. Under Roger and William Hurlbutt, master carpenters of Warwick, extensive modernization of the interiors was undertaken, 1669–78. To ensure that they would be in the latest taste, William was sent down to Dorset to make careful notes of the interiors recently finished at Kingston Lacy for Sir Ralph Bankes to designs by Sir Roger Pratt. On 4 November 1695 the castle was in sufficient state to host a visit by King William III.

Francis Greville, 8th Baron Brooke, undertook a renewed programme of improvements to Warwick Castle and its grounds. The 8th Baron Brooke was also bestowed with the title Earl of Warwick in 1759, the fourth creation of the title. With the recreation of the title, the castle was back in the ownership of the earls of Warwick. Daniel Garrett's work at Warwick is documented in 1748; Howard Colvin attributed to him the Gothick interior of the Chapel. Lancelot "Capability" Brown had been on hand since 1749. Brown, who was still head gardener at Stowe at the time and had yet to make his reputation as the main exponent of the English landscape garden, was called in by Lord Brooke to give Warwick Castle a more "natural" connection to its river. Brown simplified the long narrow stretch by sweeping it into a lawn that dropped right to the riverbank, stopped at each end by bold clumps of native trees. A serpentine drive gave an impression of greater distance between the front gates and the castle entrance.

Horace Walpole saw Brown's maturing scheme in 1751 and remarked in a letter: "The castle is enchanting. The view pleased me more than I can express; the river Avon tumbled down a cascade at the foot of it. It is well laid out by one Brown who has set up on a few ideas of Kent and Mr Southcote."

In 1754 the poet Thomas Gray, a member of Walpole's Gothicising circle, commented disdainfully on the activity at the castle:

... he has sash'd the great apartment ... and being since told, that square sash windows were not Gothic, he has put certain whimwams withinside the glass, which appearing through are to look like fretwork. Then he has scooped out a little burrough in the massy walls of the place for his little self and his children, which is hung with paper and printed linnen, and carved chimney-pieces, in the exact manner of Berkley-square or Argyle Buildings.

Gray's mention of Argyle Buildings, Westminster, London, elicited a connotation of an inappropriately modern Georgian urban development, for the buildings in Argyll Street were a speculation to designs of James Gibbs, 1736–40.

Greville commissioned Italian painter Antonio Canaletto to paint Warwick Castle in 1747, while the castle grounds and gardens were undergoing landscaping by Brown. Five paintings and three drawings of the castle by Canaletto are known, making it the artist's most often represented building in Britain. Canaletto's work on Warwick Castle has been described as "unique in the history of art as a series of views of an English house by a major continental master". As well as the gardens, Greville commissioned Brown to rebuild the exterior entrance porch and stairway to the Great Hall. Brown also contributed Gothick designs for a wooden bridge over the Avon (1758). He was still at work on Warwick Castle in 1760. Timothy Lightoler was responsible for the porch being extended and extra rooms added adjacent to it in 1763–69. and during the same years William Lindley provided a new Dining Room and other interior alterations. In 1786–88 the local builder William Eboral was commissioned to build the new greenhouse conservatory, with as its principal ornament the Warwick Vase, recently purchased in Rome.

In 1802 George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick of the new creation, had debts amounting to £115,000 (£8 million as of 2012). The earl's estates, including Warwick Castle, were given to the Earl of Galloway and John FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory, in 1806, but the castle was returned to the earls of Warwick in 1813. The Great Hall was reroofed and repaired in Gothic taste in 1830–31 by Ambrose Poynter. Anthony Salvin was responsible for restoring the Watergate Tower in 1861–63. The castle was extensively damaged by a fire in 1871 that started to the east of the Great Hall. Although the Great Hall was gutted, the overall structure was unharmed. Restoration and reparations carried out by Salvin during 1872–75 were subsidised by donations from the public, which raised a total of £9,651 (£670 thousand as of 2012).