Horrifying by Day – Terrifying by Night

The Great Hall is the largest room in the castle and throughout history has been its heart.

In the early middle ages, straw and dirt covered the floor of the Great Hall. Burning in the centre of the room would have been a large fire, its smoke turning the air acrid. The only natural light filtered through narrow lancet windows. Here it was that the nobility ate, drank and even slept.

The Hall as it stands today, was first constructed in the 14th century. It was rebuilt in the 17th century and then restored in 1871 after it had been badly damaged by a fire which swept through part of the castle.

Set against the wall is the magnificent Kenilworth buffet, made in oak by local craftsmen for the Great Exhibition of 1851. In the window is a huge cauldron known as 'Guy's Porridge Pot', named after the 10th Earl of Warwick. About 500 years old, it was used to cook stew for the castle's garrison of soldiers.

Chapel Sir Fulke Greville, the first Lord Brooke, authorised the building of the small chapel in the early 1600s. It may be on the site of another chapel founded as long ago as 1119.

State Rooms Retaining portions of the mediaeval Castle of the 14th Century, the State Rooms have been extended, altered and embellished during virtually every century since to lavishly entertain the noblest of guests, and to display the family's most prestigious possessions.