The Little Book of Warwickshire E-Book

Lynne Williams

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 255

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Warwickshire, home to William Shakespeare, Rupert Brooke and the legendary Lady Godiva, boasts a rich and engaging history. Revealed within is a plethora of entertaining facts about Warwickshire's famous and occasionally infamous men and women, its towns and countryside, battles and sieges, literary, artistic and sporting achievements, and its customs ancient and modern, including the 800-year-old Atherstone Ball Game which is still played every Shrove Tuesday. This quirky guide can be dipped into time and time again to reveal something new about the people, the heritage, the secrets and the enduring attraction of the county. A remarkably enlightening little book, this is essential reading for visitors and locals alike.

Leseprobe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following for their valuable contributions and especially my husband, Paul, for his enthusiasm and support.

Paul Williams; Matt Williams; Peter Lee (Nuneaton History Society); Warwickshire Museum; Dee Hawke; Tony Edlin; Keith Higginson; Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum.

Author illustrations appear on pages 17, 18, 20, 26, 28, 59, 151 and 165.

All other images are copyright of The History Press.

CONTENTS

Title

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Localities and Landmarks

2. Natural History

3. Landscape and Horticulture

4. Breweries and Public Houses

5. Transport

6. Battles and War

7. Crime and Punishment

8. Education, Education, Education

9. Customs Ancient and Modern

10. Industry, Agriculture and Leisure

11. Notable People and Sports Personalities

12. That’s Entertainment

13. Myths and Legends

14. Scheming Earls and Romance

15. Hospitals and Hydrotherapy

Select Bibliography

About the Author

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

Well I didn’t know that! Whether you want to delve into the history, geography, topography, ecology and personalities of Warwickshire or just dip in for a fun read, this quirky little book has it all!

Leafy Warwickshire reveals a wealth of fascinating facts, with plenty of heroes and villains, folklore and history thrown in along the way. A lurid past of dastardly deeds and martyrdom is also uncovered, where executions took the form of beheading, burning and hanging and, in the case of ‘wicked Loddy’, being pressed to death with stones.

Although landlocked, Warwickshire is blessed with an abundance of waterways that enabled many industries to flourish in the mid-eighteenth century. Cottage industries such as weaving, hatting, clock, watch and needle making became factory based and thrived with waterwheels driving the machinery. The building of canals enabled transportation of heavy goods and cheap coal from the coalfields in the north of the county and many more industries were established. This gave rise to a substantial increase in the population.

Towns have been built by quarrying the local stone and excavations have revealed exciting discoveries such as Neolithic, Saxon and Roman remains, which tell stories of how these societies were organised and how they lived their everyday lives. Prehistoric giants such as the skeleton of the Honington plesiosaur have also been unearthed and now repose in the Warwick Museum. Earthworks and ruins of motte and bailey castles are peppered throughout Warwickshire, recorded in Domesday in 1086, and evidence of Neolithic burial grounds remain. All weave a rich tapestry of the county’s ancient past that, thanks to modern archaeological techniques, can be preserved in the present.

From medieval times to modernity, customs have played a part in the everyday lives of the townsfolk and village folk. Every Shrove Tuesday the 800-year-old custom of the Atherstone Ball Game is played in the streets and is akin to running with the bulls at Pamplona, while in October the equally ancient custom of the Mop Fair is held in Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick. The old Court Leets still continue in Henley-in-Arden and Alcester and morris dancing, which once entertained Elizabeth I at Kenilworth Castle, regularly features at festivals. More recently other customs have been established, such as Carols at the Castle in December, the Victorian Fair in November and Apple Wassailing at Ryton Organic Gardens. The Sealed Knot re-enact battles that took place in Warwickshire, notably the Battle of Edgehill which, in 1642, was the first major battle of the English Civil War and ended in a bloody stalemate with over 3,000 bodies strewn between Radway and Kineton in what became known as the ‘Red Row’.

Education has long been important in the area. Warwick School can claim a heritage that reaches as far back as 1042 and Edward the Confessor, and possibly further. It then became a grammar school under the endowment of Henry VIII. Charity schools known as Bluecoat schools were the forerunner of today’s public schools and taught poor scholars basic reading, writing and arithmetic, the most famous being Rugby School, which was popularised in Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown’s Schooldays.

Home to Shakespeare and other great poets and writers, Warwickshire has been a source of inspiration. From the Great Forest of Arden, with its coalfields and the arable Feldon area to the south separated by the lovely River Avon, the beauty of the county is revealed with its open country parks, gentle rolling countryside, graceful waterways, historic towns and stately homes. The hustle and bustle of its industrial past can also still be seen with the preservation of mills, watermills and factory buildings.

The Little Book of Warwickshire is an eclectic compilation and a voyage of discovery that will enlighten, educate, amaze, astound, horrify and amuse; providing a great source of fun facts and quiz material.

Lynne R. Williams

2015

1

LOCALITIESAND LANDMARKS

PLACE NAMESAND THEIR ORIGINS

Domesday Book – compiled for William the Conqueror in 1086 to establish how much money could be raised in taxes – was an extensive land survey designed to assess the extent of land and resources and who owned it.

Ten Warwickshire place names recorded in Domesday and their Anglo-Saxon meanings:

Atherstone

Aderestone

Farmstead or village of a man called Aethelred

Barford

Bereforde

A ford or river crossing for conveying barley

Chilvers Coton

Celverdestoche

Ceolfrith’s Cottage

Dunchurch

Donecerce

The church on the hill

Kenilworth

Chinewrde

Farm of a woman

Hartshill

Andreshille

Heardred’s Hill

Luddington

Luditone

Luda’s farm

Shipston

Scepwestun

Sheep wash town

Tysoe

Tikeshoche

Spur of land dedicated to the God Tiw

Ullenhall

Ulverlei

Nook or piece of land

A reference to Warwickshire first appears in 1001 as Waeringscir, meaning ‘dwellings by the weir’.

Warwick was the only town in the County of Warwickshire in 1066. The County of Warwickshire is divided into five districts: North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Rugby, Warwick, and Stratford-upon-Avon.

The boundaries, which historically encompassed Coventry and much of Birmingham, were set in the local government reorganisation of 1974.

In the seventeenth century, Warwickshire was divided into hundreds, which were the territorial and legal divisions. Each hundred had its own court. These were the Knightlow hundred, Kineton hundred, Barlichway hundred and Hemlingford hundred.

Leafy Warwickshire was once home to the Forest of Arden, a great forested area to the north-west of the River Avon. By the 1600s much of this forest had been cleared as the land was given over to arable and sheep farming, which had become staple industries. In 1895 woodland covered about 21,000 acres, including recent plantations. By 1985 only 6,000 acres remained as semi-natural woodland. Many of the village names in the Arden ended in ‘ley’, which signified a clearing in the wood.

In the 1960s there were still thousands of elm trees throughout the county, often attaining heights of 60–80ft and helping to create ‘leafy Warwickshire’. However, in the 1970s and early ’80s, Dutch elm disease spread throughout the county and necessitated the felling of nearly all of Warwickshire’s mature elms. Today only two trees of any significance remain, one outside Wellesbourne and the other in the area of Alcester.

Warwickshire was divided into two sections, the cultivated Feldon south of the River Avon and the Great Forest of Arden bounded by the Roman roads, Icknield Street and Watling Street. In 1540, John Leland wrote: ‘The ground in Arden is muche enclosyd, plentifull of gres but no great plenty of corne. The other part of Warwykshire that lyeth on the left hond or ripe of Avon river, muche to the southe, is for the most part champion, somewhat barren of wood, but very plentifull of corne.’

The largest English oak in the Arden can be found at Stoneleigh Abbey and measures 9.2m around its circumference. It is said to be 1,000 years old.

TEN UNUSUAL PLACE NAMESFROM WARWICKSHIRE

Bermuda Place: Suburb of Nuneaton

Boot Hill: Grendon, Atherstone, north Warwickshire

Chickabiddy Lane: Southam

Copdock Hill: Hampton Lucy

Cut Throat Lane: Tanworth-in-Arden

Foul End: Near Water Orton, north Warwickshire

Squab Hall: Bishops Tachbrook, near Royal Leamington Spa

Tink-a-Tank: Warwick

Wheelbarrow Castle: Grade II listed building, Barton-on-the-Heath

Wiggerland Wood: Grade II listed building, Bishops Tachbrook

WARWICKSHIRE RHYME

A famous Warwickshire rhyme characterised certain villages:

Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston

Haunted Hillboro’, Hungry Grafton

Dodging Exhall, Papist Wixford

Beggarly Broom and Drunkard Bidford

POPULATION

The largest towns in Warwickshire (using population figures given in 2004) are:

Nuneaton (population 77,500)

Rugby (population 62,700)

Leamington Spa (population 45,300)

Bedworth (population 32,500)

PARISHES

Ten Parishes in the Arden

Population figures according to the 2001 census.

Baddesley Clinton: Population 190. The moated manor house was once owned by Nicholas Brome, who murdered the parish priest when he caught him chucking his wife under the chin. Pardoned by the king for his crimes, Nicholas sought to make amends by building the church at Baddesley Clinton and leaving instructions that on his death he be buried upright at the church door so that everyone entering should step on him. He died in 1517.

Baddesley Ensor: Population 1,921. A former mining village, the Roman road of Watling Street forms the boundary of the parish at its north-east angle for approximately 300yds. It is known for its common with beautiful views looking towards Birmingham, Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire.

Bearley: Population 758. Home to Bearley Vineyard, which was established in 2005 and is the winner of numerous regional and national awards for wines.

Fillongley: Population 3,393. In medieval times there were two castles here.

Hampton-in-Arden: Population 1,787. The parish church of St Mary and St Bartholomew has an unusual north doorway near the west end.

Haseley: Population 207. The old manor house, dated 1561, was built by Clement Throckmorton.

Henley-in-Arden: Population 2,011. Market town, originally a hamlet of Wootton Wawen.

Lapworth: Population 2,100. This parish includes two National Trust sites: Baddesley Clinton, a moated manor house, and Packwood House.

Stoneleigh: Population 2,781. A small village on the River Sowe. To the south-west of the village is Stoneleigh Abbey, founded by the Cistercian monks in 1154 and owned by the Leigh family from 1561–1990.

Temple Balsall: Population 6,234, including inhabitants of Fen End and Chadwick End. Once the headquarters of the Templars. A hamlet in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, formerly in Warwickshire.

In contrast to the heavily wooded and sparsely populated area of the Arden, the open countryside of the Feldon or Fielden with its compact villages was more densely populated.

Ten Parishes in the Feldon Area

Population figures according to the 2001 census.

Barford: Population 1,171. Birthplace of Joseph Arch who is credited with the formation of the National Agricultural Labourers Union in 1872. Also home to super centenarian Annie Butler, who was 112 years old when she died in 2009 and retains second place in the list of oldest people to have lived in the United Kingdom.

Charlecote: Population 226. Small village on the River Avon. Charlecote Manor is a National Trust property with a deer park. The park was laid out by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.

Combrook: Population (see Kineton). Combrook was formerly a ‘closed’ village entirely owned by the Lord of the Manor until the sale of Compton Verney estate in 1929. It is considered to be one of the best-preserved estate villages in the country.

Fenny Compton: Population 797. Although a small village it supported two railway stations, that of the Great Western Railway and the Stratford and Midland Junction Railway.

Gaydon: Population 376. The Gaydon Inn was once famous for its association with highwaymen. John Smith was arrested for a hold-up at the inn and was later hanged at Warwick.

Great Wolford: Population 203. To the west of the village is Wolford Wood, an ancient woodland designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1987.

Kineton: Population 2,278 (including Combrook). At the foot of Pittern Hill are the remains of the earthworks of a motte and bailey castle known as St John’s Castle.

Priors Marston: Population 506. Home to a disused Moravian chapel in Keyes Lane.

Radway: Population 259. The church of St Peter houses the effigy of Captain Henry Kingsmill who fought for Charles I and was killed at the Battle of Edgehill in 1642.

Whatcote: Population 153. Whatcote was one of the last places in the country to practice ‘rough music’, where the villagers drove an unmarried couple away, banging metal objects together and burning effigies of the pair.

SHELDON TAPESTRY

Warwick Museum houses the famous Sheldon Tapestry Map of Warwickshire. The tapestry was woven in the hamlet of Barcheston in the sixteenth century (possibly 1588) and measures 13ft high by 18ft wide. It is one of a set of four commissioned by wealthy landowner Ralph Sheldon to hang in his newly built house at Weston near Long Compton. After spending some time on loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, it was purchased by the Warwickshire Museum in 1960.

The Sheldon Tapestry is a graphic record of William Shakespeare’s Elizabethan England and depicts the hills, rivers, open fields, forests, towns, villages and great houses of the gentry. It carries the following inscription: ‘Warwickshire, so named as well of the Saxons as of us at this daye; it is divided into two parts by the river Avone running through the midest. The one is called Feldon, the other woodland.’

The Sheldon Tapestry is the pictorial forerunner of the Ordnance Survey maps.

MOTORWAYS

Warwickshire is served by six motorways:

The M40 connects Birmingham with London and runs through the centre of the county, serving Leamington Spa, Warwick and Stratford.

The M6 connects the north-west and West Midlands to the M1 and runs through the north of Warwickshire, serving Rugby, Nuneaton and Bedworth on its way to Birmingham.

The M69 from Coventry to Leicester serves Nuneaton.

Other motorways that pass briefly through Warwickshire include the M45, a short spur south of Rugby connecting with the M1, the southern end of the M6 Toll and the M42, which passes through Warwickshire at several points.

BOUNDARY

The Fosse forms a boundary to parishes for 29 of the 40 miles it runs from High Cross, Leicester in the north-east to Cirencester in the south-west, much of this distance across Warwickshire.

BURIED TREASURE

Meon Hill was once the site of an Iron Age hill fort in 700 BC–AD 43.

The largest hoard of early Roman coins so far found in the West Midlands was discovered on Edge Hill in 2008. Buried for over 1,900 years and dating from when the Romans ruled in Britain, the hoard found in a small pot contained 1,146 silver Denari coins. The last coin to be added to the collection depicted the head of Emperor Nero.

Manduessum (the Roman name for Mancetter) was the major location of Roman pottery producers who occupied the site for 400 years.

In 1922, a large Anglo-Saxon burial ground was discovered in Bidford-upon-Avon and a hoard of jewels, shields and other artefacts were revealed dating back to AD 500.

CASTLESINTHE AIR

Warwickshire was once peppered with Norman motte and bailey castles, many of which have either disappeared leaving nothing more than earthworks as evidence. Others were timber-built but gradually replaced with stone and these remain as partially excavated ruins.

A sixteenth-century timber-framed building referred to as the ‘old castle manor’ stands on the site once occupied by Studley Castle built in the eleventh century by William Courbucion.

Earthworks are all that remain of the former Norman motte and bailey Beaudesert Castle in Henley-in-Arden. Originally the castle was surrounded by a deep dry moat and would have been built of timber but gradually replaced with stone. A dig was carried out by the BBC’s Time Team in September 2001 and their findings suggested that the castle would originally have been a large hall with a solar.

Allesley Castle may have been erected by Lord Hastings in the early fourteenth century and the medieval ringwork survives as earthworks. The castle mound is a substantial circular earthworks motte measuring 50m in diameter and surrounded by a dry ditch moat.

At Astley Castle a moat, a gateway and curtain walls survive the fortified manor house built in 1226. The manor was acquired by the Grey family in 1450 but in 1461 Sir John Grey was killed fighting for the Lancastrians at St Albans, leaving a widow, Elizabeth Woodville, who then married Edward IV. The castle later became the home of Sir Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, and his daughter, Lady Jane Grey, who ruled as queen for nine days. When Lady Jane Grey and her father were beheaded at the Tower of London in 1554 the manor was demolished on the orders of Mary Tudor but rebuilt by Sir Henry’s widow. In 1654 the Newdigate family of Arbury acquired the estate and in 1820 Gothic additions were made. Now owned by the Landmark Trust, the red sandstone building, with its embattled parapets, is now a holiday let built within the ruins.

Bagot’s Castle in Baginton is a fourteenth-century castle rebuilt by Sir William Bagot in the late 1300s. The original building is believed to have been constructed in the eleventh century during the reign of Henry I. In the seventeenth century the castle was replaced with a hall and was the seat of the Bromley family from 1698. The house was destroyed by fire in 1889 and excavation work carried out in the twentieth century exposed the remains of the castle.

Brailes Castle, which dates from the mid-twelfth century, was probably constructed by Roger de Beaumont, Earl of Warwick. Earthworks remain of the Norman motte and bailey.

Churchover Castle is described by The Gatehouse Record as being a well-preserved little moated mount castle. The earthwork motte founded by the Waure family in the eleventh century is surrounded by a wet ditch.

The ruins of Fillongley Castle, built by the Hastings family in the twelfth century, are situated at Castle Yard. It was turned into a fortified manor house at the start of the fourteenth century and left to decay in the fifteenth century. An earlier motte castle known as ‘Old Fillongley’ on Castle Hills was abandoned in the thirteenth century.

By the River Stour in Halford are the earthworks and buried remains of Halford Castle, thought to have been in use in the fourteenth century. A low mound of the motte standing 4m high can be found in the grounds of Halford Manor, which replaced it.

Hartshill Castle was built by Hugh de Hadreshill in the twelfth century. On top of the motte was a wooden tower that served to house the Lord of the Manor and his family as well as being a lookout tower. A Tudor house was built in 1560 incorporating the bailey walls of the castle but was demolished in the 1950s.

Seckington Castle, a motte and bailey built in the eleventh century by the Earl of Meulan, is a conical motte measuring 9m high and 46m in diameter. The castle is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument since 1923 and is on the edge of the village, surrounded on three sides by traces of ridge and furrow cultivation.

The motte and bailey at Brinklow was the largest in Warwickshire with the motte standing 12.192m high and 18.288m wide and the bailey extending 121.92m x 152.4m.

CASTLES STANDING

The town of Warwick is home to what has been described as the finest surviving medieval castle in the country, albeit with embellishments and additions made in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

From its beginnings in the eleventh century, the Norman motte and bailey moated castle has been the seat of the earls of Warwick and continued as such for many centuries.

Originally a timber-built structure dating from the time of William the Conqueror in 1068, the castle was replaced with stone. Ethelfleda’s Mound, which still exists to the present day, was said to be the first fortification on the site in 914.

Warwick Castle was sold to Madame Tussauds in 1978 and taken over by America’s biggest theme park company, Merlin Entertainments, in 2007. It is now one of the United Kingdom’s biggest tourist attractions.

Guy and Caesars Towers were constructed in the fourteenth century and formed part of a formidable set of defences. Bear and Clarence Towers represent the remains of a fifteenth-century fortification and Bear Tower is so called because it had a bear pit and was used for bear baiting. The Bear Tower was investigated by Tony Robinson from BBC’s Time Team on 15 February 2013.

Maxstoke Castle is a fine example of a moated and fortified manor house that has survived largely intact. Commissioned by William de Clinton, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, in 1345, additions were made by Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who acquired the castle in 1437. A Grade I listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument, it is in private ownership but opens to the public on occasion. Maxstoke has been in the continuous ownership of the Dilke (later Fetherston Dilke) families since the seventeenth century.

The substantial ruins of Kenilworth Castle, described by architectural historian Anthony Emery as ‘the finest surviving example of a semi-royal palace of the later Middle Ages, significant for its scale, form and quality of workmanship’, was once the seat of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Originally founded in the 1100s around a Norman great tower, it was enlarged by King John at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Robert Dudley constructed new buildings in which to entertain and impress Elizabeth I on her visits to the castle, particularly her final visit in 1575.

True to form, the Parliamentarians slighted the castle to prevent it from becoming a Royalist stronghold. Then in 1650 Parliamentarian Colonel Hawksworth acquired the castle and converted Dudley’s gatehouse into a residence for himself.

The Great Mere, which was once filled with water and provided protection for the castle, has long since been drained and is now meadowland.

The Grade I Scheduled Ancient Monument has been managed by English Heritage since 1984 and is open to the public. Elizabeth I’s bedchamber was made accessible to the public in September 2014.

RELIGIOUS STRUCTURESAND BURIAL PLACES

Cursuses are long parallel banks of earth that linked various religious monuments in the Neolithic period and were used for special processions during burial ceremonies. Evidence of these has been found at Charlecote, Barford Sheds and Longbridge, Warwick. Corpses were taken to mortuary enclosures before burial.

The henge, a Neolithic earthwork featuring a ring bank and ditch inside the bank, which was used for meeting places for religious ceremony, was discovered at Sherbourne near Warwick.

The only surviving henge monument in Warwickshire is the Rollright Stones that stand on the Cotswold border with Oxfordshire.

It has been suggested that Mancetter in north Warwickshire is possibly the site of the last battle of Boudica, leader of the Iceni tribe, against the Romans in AD 60–61.

Evidence of a long barrow, a massive earth mound covering burial chambers, was found at Wasperton near Warwick.

The church in Henley-in-Arden is dedicated to St Nicholas and his image is depicted on the weather vane on the tower of the church. St Nicholas was a fourth-century Greek Christian who was venerated for his compassion and help for the poor, sick and needy, and especially as the protector of children and sailors. He became Bishop of Myra but, under the persecution of Christians by Diocletian, he was exiled and imprisoned. The anniversary of his death, on 6 December AD 343 (19 December in the Julian calendar), became a day of celebration. Today St Nicholas is better known as Santa Claus.

The oldest church in Warwickshire is St Peter’s in Wootton Wawen. The church, possibly 1,100 years old, houses a Saxon sanctuary. A semi-circular stained-glass memorial window tells the story of St Kenelm, a 7-year-old boy who succeeded his father to the throne of Mercia but was then murdered by order of his aunt.

A stone monument surmounted with a cross stands in the wood on Blacklow Hill, Warwick, and commemorates the execution of Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall. The plaque reads: ‘Here in this hollow was beheaded on 1st day of July 1312, Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, killed by barons lawless as himself, the minion of a hateful king, in life and in death, a memorable instance of misrule.’ The monument was erected by Bertie Greatheed, squire of Guy’s Cliffe Manor in 1821.

The first Roman temple to be found in Warwickshire was excavated in the late 1970s at Grimstock Hill near Coleshill.

The thirteenth-century church of St Peter and St Paul at Coleshill houses an unusual effigy. In the floor of the chancel lies a brass figure of the first vicar of the Reformation, John Fenton, whose right hand displays five fingers and a thumb.

An eighteenth-century record breaker, Thomas Spooner is buried in the churchyard of St Matthews at Shuttington. Thomas’ claim to fame was as the fattest man in England, weighing 40 stone 9lbs and measuring 4ft 3in across his shoulders.

An unusual headstone graces the churchyard of St Lawrence’s in Oxhill. It is inscribed: ‘Here lyeth the body of Myrtilla, negro slave to Mr Tho. Beauchamp of Nevis. Bapd. Oct. Ye 20th and buried Jan. 6th 1705.’

In Antiquities of Warwickshire, William Dugdale lists the collection of relics once held in St Mary’s church, Warwick, as recorded in 1455. These included fragments of the True Cross, various relics of the Virgin Mary, and the bones and other remains of more than thirty saints. There was also the ivory horn of St George, a stone on which his blood fell when he was martyred and a piece of the burning bush that Moses saw.

A memorial window at the church of St Peter in Binton depicts the expedition of Captain Robert Scott to the South Pole, which commenced in 1910.

Windows in the church of St Denis, Little Compton, depict the execution and burial of Charles I on 30 January 1649. He is accompanied by his chaplain, William Juxon, Bishop of London. Juxon became Archbishop of Canterbury and later crowned Charles’ son, Charles II, in Westminster Abbey. He retired to Little Compton.

TEN PLACESOF INTEREST

Chilvers Coton Heritage Centre: This collection revolves around memories from past communities to present.

Compton Verney Art Gallery: Located near Kineton, this eighteenth-century Grade I country mansion is set in 120 acres of landscaped parkland designed by Capability Brown. Collections include Neapolitan art 1600–1800, North European medieval art 1450–1650 and Chinese bronzes.

Coventry Transport Museum: Located in Millennium Place, this is one of the largest attractions of its kind in Europe. Notable exhibits are Thrust2 and ThrustSSC, the British jet cars that broke the land speed record in 1983 and 1997.

Herbert Art Gallery & Museum: Located at Jordon Well, Coventry, collections include sculpture, old masters paintings, art since 1900 and local history. There is also a cafe area and education, training, creative media and arts information facilities.

Heritage Motor Centre Museum: The world’s greatest collection of classic, vintage and veteran British cars. This museum can be found on Banbury Road, Gaydon.

Leamington Art Gallery & Museum: This award-winning gallery at the Royal Pump Rooms houses over 11,000 objects in the fields of art, crafts, sculpture, local and social history, archaeology and ethnography.

Mechanical, Art & Design (MAD) Museum: Located in Sheep Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, this museum displays an exciting collection of machinery, incorporating gears, chains, pulleys and whirligigs. It is an extravaganza of automata and kinetic art.

Nuneaton Museum & Art Gallery: Collections include fine and decorative art, social and industrial history, and objects from the life and times of both novelist George Eliot and television comedian and game show host, Larry Grayson.

St John’s Museum, Warwick: The museum includes a Victorian schoolroom and kitchen, and houses costumes and memorabilia of the Warwickshire Fusiliers.

The Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum: Situated in Rugby town centre, the memorabilia includes a Gilbert football first exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London and an original Richard Lindon brass hand pump. Traditional rugby balls are still made at the museum.

NATIONAL TRUST PROPERTIES

Warwickshire boasts six National Trust properties and a rare fourteenth-century circular dovecote at Kinwarton near Alcester with 1m-thick walls, hundreds of nesting holes and an original rotating ladder. The properties are as follows:

Baddesley Clinton: Grade I listed moated manor house originally owned by John Brome and later home to the Ferrers family.

Charlecote Park: Grade I listed building with grounds sculptured by Capability Brown. Home to the Lucy family, followed by the Fairfax family.

Coughton Court: Grade I listed Tudor building (pronounced ‘coat-un’). It was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and is home to the Throckmortons.

Farnborough Hall: Grade I listed building, home to the Holbech family.

Packwood House: Grade I listed Tudor building owned by John Fetherston and later Graham Baron Ash. It was donated to the National Trust in 1941.

Upton House: Built by Sir Rushout Cullen in 1695, it was then owned by banker Francis Child and George Child Villiers of the Jersey family and later the Bearsted family. Marcus Bearsted was famously the founder of the oil company Shell Transport and Trading.

SPA TOWN

The first brick of the first house to be built in New Town, Leamington Spa, was laid on 8 October 1808 by George Stanley, a Warwick stonemason.

The Pump Room baths were opened in 1814 at a cost of nearly £30,000. Although the saline springs of Leamington Priors, as it was then called, had been recognised as early as 1586, it wasn’t until the arrival of Benjamin Satchwell in 1787 that they became exploited. By the early nineteenth century, several baths had been established and the town was now called Leamington Spa. A common warm or hot bath cost 2s 6d, a marble bath 3s and a cold bath 1s. At the new baths the charge for a warm bath was 3s and a cold bath 1s 6d. Queen Victoria visited the town in 1838 and gave her permission to call it Royal Leamington Spa.

The Regent Hotel was opened in 1819. First known as ‘William’s Hotel’ the title was changed to Regent by permission of George IV who visited it. It was closed in 1998 but reopened in 2003 as a Travelodge after refurbishment.

TEN WARWICKSHIRE WINDMILLS

Burton Dassett Mill: Built in 1664, it ceased working around 1912.

Chesterton: Grade I listed tower mill of unique design with an arched base. This windmill was built for Parliamentarian Sir Edward Peyto in 1632 and ceased working in 1910. It was restored by Warwickshire County Council in 1965–71.

Napton Windmill: Built around 1835, it ceased working by sails in around 1900 and by steam in around 1909.

Norton Lindsey Tower Mill: Built in the Imperial period, steam was added in 1889 and it last worked in 1906. The mill is now undergoing restoration.

Rowington Tower Mill: Called ‘Bouncing Bess’ the mill was used as a prisoner-of-war dormitory during the First World War and converted into a house in 1978.

Shrewley disused wooden-post windmill: Formerly called ‘Pinchem’, this windmill was originally built in Claverdon in 1803 and was moved to Shrewley Common in 1832.

Southam ‘Old Mill’: Built in around 1807, the mill was rebuilt after a fire in 1849 and demolished in the early 1980s.

Stockton Post Windmill: Built in 1810, it ceased work in 1879 and was demolished in 1923.

Thurlaston Tower Mill: Built in 1794, it was last used in 1910 and collapsed in 1937.

Upper Tysoe Tower Mill