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The castle courtyard is a large expanse of lawn with various medieval crafts and games in tented pavilions around the walls. Here we can see the gatehouse, and Guy's tower. Guy's tower was completed in 1395 and stands 39 m high. It has twelve sides. The first four stories were used for living accommodations and the fifth story is a Hexagonal guardroom. The narrow slit windows were for archers to defend the castle and the larger windows were made to allow use of small cannons during the English Civil War. The path along the battlements and at the tops of the various towers give wonderful views over the town of Warwick and the river Avon. The castle has housed a working mill powered by the flow of the river for 600 years. Originally for grinding grain into flour, nowadays it generates electricity and is used for power throughout the castle. The working trebuchet siege engine is located across the river from the castle. It is one of the largest in the world at 18m high and gives several demonstrations each day. The trebuchet throwing arm is wound down by operators walking inside the wheel treadmills that wind a rope around the wheel axle. As the arm is lowered, the rectangular bucket full of rocks or other heavy ballast is raised storing potential energy for the throw. Here the trebuchet throwing arm has been wound down to the firing position. The projectile is in a sling just to the right of the left hand leg of the A frame and is connected to the end of the throwing arm by a rope. When the trigger mechanism is released, the weight of the ballast in the bucket pulls the base end of the arm down and the opposite throwing end accelerates up and over the top,throwing the projectile rock to the right down the field. The Trebuchet is capable of hurling huge rocks considerable distances and was used to batter castle walls repeatedly during a siege. Eventually the wall would be breached enough to allow attackers to fight their way inside the castle. Warwick Castle museum contains many interesting artifacts from the medieval age including this executioner's beheading axe that would have been used to execute nobility sentenced to death. Death would have been very quick. Commoners were executed by the more fearsome method of hanging, drawing and quartering as depicted in the movie Braveheart.
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