Kenilworth Castle is the reason to come — one of England's largest castle ruins, with red sandstone walls stretching across a hilltop and a reconstructed Elizabethan garden that commemorates the extraordinary 1575 royal visit where Robert Dudley spent a fortune entertaining Queen Elizabeth I. A young William Shakespeare almost certainly witnessed the spectacle from nearby Stratford. Abbey Fields in the town centre holds the remains of a twelfth-century Augustinian priory in pleasant open parkland, with a 1930s lido still operating in summer.