Explorer Warwick

Warwick Castle stands on a sandstone bluff above the River Avon in Warwick, on the site of a wooden fort built by William the Conqueror in 1068. It was rebuilt in stone in the 12th century, and Caesar's Tower and Guy's Tower were added in the 14th. Later a country house of the Earls of Warwick, it is now run as a visitor attraction.

Kenilworth Castle is a largely ruined castle in the town of Kenilworth in Warwickshire, begun around a Norman great tower in the 1120s and enlarged by King John, John of Gaunt and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. It withstood a six-month siege in 1266; visitors see the keep, the great hall, Leicester's Building, the gatehouse and the recreated Elizabethan garden of 1575.

Shakespeare's Birthplace is a restored 16th-century half-timbered house on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, where William Shakespeare is believed to have been born in 1564. His father John worked as a glover here. Bought by public subscription in 1847, it is run as a museum by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, with furnished rooms and a workshop.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre is the main stage of the Royal Shakespeare Company, on the bank of the River Avon in Stratford-upon-Avon. Elisabeth Scott designed the 1932 building after fire destroyed the first theatre of 1879. A rebuild completed in 2010 created a thrust stage with just over 1,000 seats, and the complex also holds the smaller Swan Theatre.

Shakespeare's New Place is the site of the house in Stratford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare lived from 1597 until his death there in 1616. The house was demolished in 1759; the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust now presents its footprint as a garden with commissioned artworks, next to the Great Garden and a restored knot garden.

Holy Trinity Church is the parish church of Stratford-upon-Avon, standing beside the River Avon on the site of a Saxon monastery. The present building dates from 1210, the chancel was rebuilt in the late 15th century and the stone spire was added in 1763. William Shakespeare was baptised here in 1564 and is buried in the chancel.

Anne Hathaway's Cottage is a twelve-room thatched farmhouse in Shottery, about 1.6 km west of Stratford-upon-Avon's centre, where Shakespeare's wife Anne Hathaway lived as a child. The oldest part dates from 1463. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has owned it since 1892 and shows the family's furniture, the cottage garden and the orchard.