Skip to main content

Warwick




Warwick is a town that has been populated for about 1000 years. It is best known for its medieval castle founded by William the Conqueror on the banks of the Avon River. 


Warwick has two lesser known attractions that we loved (Mill Garden and the Warwickshire Museum).


Mill Garden


Mill Garden is on the picturesque Avon River and beside the castle. The river runs clear; but not too fast in the shallows. The river is full of life and Monet-esque with its water lilies, willows and stone bridge ruin. 




Mill Garden is an English cottage garden in the truest sense and about 1/3 of an acre in size. It is colour filled with contrasting foliage and flowers; it is also teeming with butterflies, small birds, bumblebees and dragonflies. 




The garden can be found at the end of Mill Lane in Warwick. It is privately owned and entry requires a donation to their local charity.  


Warwickshire Museum 



The Warwick Museum is in the centre of town. The 17th century sandstone market place was converted into a museum in the 19th century. The museum is small. It is about the size that you would expect a town and not a city museum to be. It is a museum that punches above its weight. 



What makes the museum unique is both its theme and strong narrative.  The museum theme was "taking Warwickshire to the world". 



The exhibit included fossils collected locally and a geological  display; locally produced clothing including 19th century hats, shoes, waistcoats, etc; a 16th century silk and wool tapestry map of the shire; a honey display including a live indoor bee hive; taxidermied local animals; and much more. 



Each display connected to the theme and each section was curated with a strong narrative and a few well-chosen display items that supported the narrative. Most of the display items were world class, and many had been borrowed. 



The museum takes no more than 1 hour and can be done in 30 minutes. It's free, but a donation is encouraged.



The museum inspired us. It was a great example of storytelling and cultural preservation, in an engaging and informative way. It also demonstrated that through partnerships world class resource can be accessed. 


Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous5 August 2019 at 03:30

    Well now you have me feeling homesick! My brother lives around the corner and we spent a lovely day in the grounds of Warwick Castle entertaining cousins and nephews. It looks like the weather is being kind and its nice to see a Squirrel!

    Take care both,
    Mark and Juliet xxxx

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to take a Van-life gap year

How to take a Van-life gap year You don’t just wake up one day, book tickets, fly to Europe and pick up the first campervan you see.  There is a lot of planning and organizing to make it happen. For us, it was a concept that we worked towards over two years and got serious about in the last 6-8 months.  Van purchase In researching vans, we learned that we could buy one, but couldn't insure or register it without being either European residents (read: address, bank account and utility bills in the country we wished to buy the van in) or set up a company to own, insure and register the van. Now this is not straight-forward as one needs to be able to navigate the system from the other side of the world and in another language (as vans in the UK / Ireland were considerably more expensive than on the continent). There are a number of companies who provide services in this space.  We chose EuroCampingCars, because they are based in France and deal in late model v
2 comments
Read more

Highland Games

Arriving in Scotland we saw Highland Games advertised in almost every town that we visited. The problem for us was the events were either the week before or in 4 days time; never at a time convenient for us. Our luck changed on the Scottish Borders town of Peebles; all the stars aligned.  Highland Games are when local communities get together and celebrate Scottish culture. All Highland games include: a pipe band competition, highland dancing, and traditional heavy events including caber tossing, hammer throwing, and the crowd favourite of haggis hurling.  Pipe bands and dancing are open to all ages and cover a range of abilities Shot putt is the same as the Olympic event but competitors are free to use whatever technique works for them. Some use a standing throw, others use a run up or spinning preparation.   Hammer throwing, unlike its Olympic equivalent the hammer has a wooden handle and the athlete does not spin in a circle before throwing it. The athlete us
2 comments
Read more

Traditional Cider Production

How do you find out how cider is authentically made? One method is you go to Somerset visit a cider pub ie one that has a license to only sell cider. No beer or spirits here, thank you very much. Then you settle in for a few pints. Once the patrons have become accustomed to you and you can understand their west-country accents you ask them where and how to make this happen.  We were at the Tuckers Grave Cider House when a cidery name was thrown out to us by a local. “Go and see Roger Wilkins he makes good cider and he makes it the old way” we were told with a toothless grin “but he lives in a back lane and you will ne’er find him”. Nothing like a challenge for Tanya (navigator). Other patrons said that the Wilkins Farmhouse Cidery was the most authentic in all of Somerset. The next day we phoned Roger and were given directions.     Driving down tiny laneways with mirrors on both sides of the van hitting the overgrown hedgeways we found the farm. On the high side of the l
2 comments
Read more