Kenilworth Castle has had an unusually long record of academic research. William Dugdale’s 1656 history of Warwickshire is still an important reference work in its own right and has provided a rich quarry for much of what has been published about Kenilworth since. (1) Like the Kenilworth entry in volume six of the Victoria County History (published in 1951), it is all the more important because it considers the castle in the context of its wider landscape and neighbouring properties. (2)
Thanks to the popularity of Sir Walter Scott’s 'Kenilworth' (1821), 19th century works tended to focus on Kenilworth in the age of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester: for example George Adlard’s useful miscellany 'Amy Robsarte and the Earl of Leycester and a History of Kenilworth Castle' (1870). The visitors who flocked to the castle were provided with a series of guides, exceptional among which is the wide-ranging and scholarly account of the castle by the Rev'd E H Knowles in the 1870s. (3)
By contrast the generation of historians who worked on the castle after it came into state care were much more interested in the Middle Ages – reflecting both the principal interest of the Office of Works and the astonishing quality of the surviving medieval structures.
The Office of Works historian John H Harvey, who would become the eminence grise of medieval architectural history, published an influential article on Kenilworth in the later Middle Ages, including a range of transcripts of documents, in the 1944 issue of the Archaeological Journal. (4) A short complementary piece was published by R Allen Brown in the issue for 1953, focusing on the preceding period. (5)
The standard scholarly history of the castle to the mid 16th century, found in volume two the 'History of the King’s Works', was also the work of Brown, together with Howard Colvin – the latter continuing the story of the site into the Tudor period in volume four. Gaps inevitably remain, as the 'King’s Works' covered the castle in royal ownership, so omitting periods of the Middle Ages and stopping in the mid 16th century. (6)
A range of archaeological investigations took place in the 20th century following the castle’s passage into state ownership, prompted by conservation projects and the need for visitor facilities. These included investigations into the outer court connected with clearance, (7) and at the Tiltyard, prompted in part by the transfer of the main visitor entrance to the castle from the north to the south in the 1960s. (8)
They also included some investigation at the Pleasance, and more extensive digging in the late 1960s and 1970s in the area north of the keep in search of the Elizabethan garden. (9) Michael Thompson was a key figure in many of these excavations, and also published an article on the great hall – the thesis of which remains a subject of debate. (10)
The early 21st century has witnessed a flurry of new research. This has included Simon Adams’s important work on Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, based on extensive archival research, and Richard Morris’s work on the castle, based on close examination of the built remains. (11)
Further work has been prompted by the re-presentation of parts of the castle, including very detailed analysis of the gatehouse and extensive work to inform a second attempt to re-create Dudley’s great garden in 2008.
Among the areas of the castle’s history which are less well understood are:
- The history of the site before Geoffrey de Clinton
- The form and development of the castle’s parks and landscape in the Middle Ages and early modern periods
- The nature of the building complex at the Pleasance, at which an excavation would be revealing
- Untangling the development of the castle and landscape during the 14th and 15th centuries, reconsidering the duchy of Lancaster accounts alongside the surviving building evidence
- The relationship between the castle and the priory
- The history of the dismantling of the estate in the mid 17th century
- The history of the treatment of the fabric of the castle during 18th and 19th centuries
- The role of the castle in the Romantic movement
- The conservation work of the Ministry of Works in the 1940s and later
(1) William Dugdale, 'The Antiquities of Warwickshire illustrated; from records, leiger books, manuscripts, charters, evidences, tombes, and armes: beautified with maps, prospects and portraictures', London, Thomas Warren, 1656.
(2) The Victoria County History of Warwickshire, VI.
(3) E H Knowles, 'The Castle of Kenilworth: A Handbook for Visitors', Warwick, 1872.
(4) John H Harvey, ‘Side-Lights on Kenilworth Castle’, Archaeological Journal, 101 (1944), 91–107
(5) Brown, R Allen, ‘A Note on Kenilworth Castle: The Change to Royal Ownership’, Archaeological Journal, 110 (1953), 120–24.
(6) The History of the King's Works, I, III.
(7) Philip Rahtz, 'Kenilworth Castle, 1960', Transactions and Proceedings of the Birmingham Archaeological Society, 81 (1966), 3.
(8) Thompson, M W, ‘Two Levels of the Mere at Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire’, Medieval Archaeology, 9 (1965), 156–61.
(9) Thompson, M W, ‘The Reclamation of Waste Ground for the Pleasance at Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire’, Medieval Archaeology, 8 (1964), 222–3; Ellis, Peter (ed), ‘The Elizabethan Gardens and Leicester’s Stables at Kenilworth Castle’, Transactions and Proceedings of the Birmingham and Warwickshire Archaeological Society, 99 (1995), 81–116.
(10) Thompson, M W, ‘Three Stages in the Construction of the Hall at Kenilworth Castles, Warwickshire’, in M R Apted, R Gilyard-Beer and A D Saunders (eds), 'Ancient Monuments and their Interpretation: Essays Presented to A. J. Taylor', London, Philimore, 1977, 211–18.
(11) Adams, Simon, ‘“Because I am of that countrye & mynde to plant myself there”: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and the West Midlands’, Midland History, 20 (1995), 21–74; Adams, Simon, 'Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586', Camden 5th Series, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; Morris, Richard K, ‘“I Was Never More in Love with an Olde Howse nor never Newe Worke Coulde be Better Bestowed”: The Earl of Leicester’s Remodelling of Kenilworth Castle for Queen Elizabeth I’, Antiquaries Journal, 89 (2009), 241–305.
