Kenilworth Castle {English Heritage}

Whenever we meet up with Colette and her gorgeous trio we pick somewhere halfway between us. The last time we met up was at Witley Court and Gardens and I signed up for English Heritage membership whilst we were there. It just so happened that our next adventure took us to another English Heritage site – Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire.

I was expecting somewhere with castle in it’s name to be incredibly busy but when we arrived we found the car park to be quite a lot smaller than the places we usually meet at, a sign that Kenilworth Castle isn’t as busy as other places. Also, the cold but dry weather played in our favour – as it means people were wrapped up warm indoors. We found Kenilworth Castle to be enjoyably quiet, knowing the children could run around and explore without disturbing anyone.

Kenilworth Castle is open air and covers quite a large footprint, allowing the children to explore around the ruins for hours. Much of the castle is ruined but there are quite a few large intact parts and a perfectly formed Gate House that we could explore inside too.

The castle had beautiful gardens and so many areas of grass where the children could run around – or even roll down the hill – when the mood took them. We stopped for lunch in the castle restaurant and this was our only niggle of our trip. The converted barn didn’t seem to have any heating and even the staff were freezing. We ate lunch with our coats and wooly hats on when all we wanted was somewhere away from the cold to warm up. The food was really lovely though and we all enjoyed our lunch despite the cold.

The toilets in Kenilworth Castle are strangely located, outside the Gate House in a little bunker type building next to the gardens. It would have been nice if the toilets were in the same building as the restaurant but once we’d found them it wasn’t that much of a problem.

Kenilworth Castle was a great day out with the kind of space the children just couldn’t get bored of. There were stairs to climb up and down, basements, windows and little holes to hide in at every turn. It was pretty much a child’s dream and the five children had a really lovely day – fuelled with a flask of hot chocolate!

We had such a nice day at Kenilworth Castle and I’m now wondering where our next English Heritage adventure will take us.