William the Conqueror established a timber motte-and-bailey castle in 1068, demolishing four houses to make room. Henry II replaced it with a stone shell keep between 1154 and 1189. Thomas de Beauchamp, the 11th Earl, enhanced the defenses from 1330 to 1360, adding a gatehouse, barbican and the towers now called Caesar's and Guy's, both residential, machicolated and vaulted in stone. Richard III commissioned the Bear and Clarence Towers, left unfinished at his death in 1485.
Fulke Greville, granted the castle in 1604, converted it into a country house and spent over 20,000 pounds. Capability Brown shaped the grounds and river setting in the 1750s. A fire in 1871 destroyed the Great Hall and private apartments, and Anthony Salvin repaired them.
The curtain wall is about 427 by 269 feet (130 by 82 m) on a sandstone bluff above the Avon. Merlin Entertainments operates it with jousting and a trebuchet show.
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