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Warwick, Warwickshire

Historical Description

Warwick, a market and county town, a municipal and parliamentary borough, the head of a poor-law union, petty sessional division, and county court district, and two parishes in Warwickshire. The town stands on the river Avon, near the junction of the Warwick and Birmingham and the Warwick and Napton canals, 2 miles W by S of Leamington, 10 S of Coventry, 21 SE of Birmingham, and 91½ by road and 98½ by railway from London. It has a station on the Oxford and Birmingham section of the G.W.R., and another at Milverton, a mile distant, on the Rugby, Leamington, and Warwick branch of the L. & N.W.R., and a head post office. Warwick appears to have been a place of some note, with a fortress, in the times of the Saxons. It suffered much injury by incursions of the Danes; was restored, with reconstruction of its fortress, in 915 by Ethelfleda, daughter of King Alfred; is associated in old legend with the story of the giant Guy, who is said to have died in 929 at Guy's Cliff, 1½ mile to the NNE; suffered much injury again in 1016 from the Danes; figured soon after the Norman Conquest as a town of military strength, surrounded with walls; had 261 houses at Domesday, and belonged then to Turchil the Dane; passed to Henry de Newburgh, who was created Earl of Warwick, and died in 1123; acquired from him, on the site of its ancient fortress, a great castle; sustained a Royalist siege of fourteen days in the Civil Wars of Charles I.; was devastated in 1694 by a great fire, which destroyed property to the value of £90,000; and underwent subsequent reconstruction, over the area of the fire, in an improved style, at a cost of £120,000. It numbers among its natives the antiquary John Rous and the monkish historian Walter of Coventry. Warwick was first chartered by Queen Mary. The municipal borough is divided into three wards, and is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 18 councillors, who act as the urban sanitary authority. The borough has a separate commission of the peace and a separate court of quarter sessions. It returned two members to the House of Commons from the time of Edward I. to 1885, but by the Redistribution of Seats Act of that year its representation was reduced to one member, and the parliamentary borough was extended so as to include Leamington, Milverton, and Lillington. Warwick carries on brewing, malting, rope-making, and iron-founding. There are also gelatine and isinglass works, art-furniture and glass-staining works, and brickfields. A market is held on Saturdays, stock sales on every alternate Wednesday, and fairs on 12 Oct. and the second Monday in Nov. The town occupies elevated ground, amid beautiful and diversified environs, and presents a well-aligned, well-built, and pleasant appearance, with many good houses. It contains a shire-hall, market-house, corn exchange, a free public library, a natural history museum, several clubs, three banks, a dispensary and cottage hospital, an infirmary for infectious diseases, a police station, a workhouse, and H.M. prison for Warwickshire, erected in 1860. There is a one-arched bridge over the river. A weekly newspaper is published. Races are held in Feb., April, Sept., Oct., and Nov. The depot of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and the headquarters of the 1st and 2nd Warwick Militia (now the 3rd and 4th battalions Royal Warwickshire Regiment) are at Budbrook. Warwick is also the headquarters of the Warwickshire Yeomanry Cavalry.

The castle stands on a rock, contiguous to the Avon, at the SE side of the town; passed with the earldom of Warwick to the Newburghs, the Plessetts, the Mauduits, the Beauchamps, the Nevilles, the Plantagenets, the Dudleys, the Riches, and the Grevilles; was garrisoned by King Stephen, and given up to Prince Henry; suffered surprise and partial demolition by the rebels in the time of Henry III.; underwent repair in 1312 by Earl Guy, who brought hither Piers Gaveston, and beheaded him on Blacklow Hill; was further repaired and greatly strengthened in the time of Edward III. by Earl Thomas; underwent restorations and additions at subsequent periods by other earls; held Edward IV. as a prisoner in 1468, and received him as a visitor in 1470, in the time of Warwick the king-maker; went in the time of James I. to the Grevilles, afterwards Lords Brooke, but not Earls of Warwick till 1725; was magnificently restored and embellished by Sir Fulke Greville at a cost of £20,000; repelled an attack of the Royalists in the Civil Wars of Charles I.; was further embellished and fitted with state apartments in the time of Charles II. by Robert Lord Brooke; and is described by Sir Walter Scott as the "fairest monument of ancient and chivalrous splendour which yet remains uninjured by time." Part of the castle was devastated by fire in 1871, and though the building has been restored many valuable works of art were destroyed. The castle occupies an area of about 3 acres, partly rising to about 72 feet above the level of the Avon; presents an irregular but most imposing appearance in frontage towards the river; consists of towers, turrets, battlemented walls, and other structures, around a large irregular court; includes Caesar's tower, the oldest part of the entire structure, 147 feet high, octangular, vastly strong, and well preserved Guy's tower, built in 1394, less lofty than Caesar's, but occupying a higher site and overlooking it a great hall, 62 feet long, 40 wide, and 39 high, the first of a suite of apartments aggregately 330 feet long, all in one range a dining-room, 43 feet long, 25 wide, and 18 high three drawing-rooms, one of them 47 feet long and 25 wide, and all, as also the other apartments, magnificently furnished; and has pleasure-grounds, charmingly laid out, adorned with old cedars and other stately trees, and containing, in a green-house, an exquisite work of ancient Grecian art, found near the site of the Emperor Hadrian's villa at Tivoli in 1774, and now known as the Warwick Vase. The valuable collection of pictures by Vandyck, Rubens, Rembrandt, and other old masters was formed by the second Earl of Warwick of the Greville family, in George III.'s reign.

Two gates, ancient ornamental entrances to the town, stand at the extremities of one of the principal streets, and have from time to time been repaired and recased, without due preservation of their original character, and each is surmounted by an ancient chapel. St Mary's Church dates from the Norman times, became collegiate in 1123, was restored or rebuilt in 1394, suffered destruction by fire, excepting the choir, the Lady chapel, and the chapter-house, in 1694, was rebuilt in 1704 in the somewhat debased style of the period; upwards of £12,000 has been expended on its restoration. It is a cruciform edifice, measuring 180 feet from E to W, and 106 feet along the transept. The tower is 130 feet high, and crowned with pinnacles rising to a farther height of 44 feet The Lady or Beauchamp chapel is an exquisite example of Perpendicular architecture. It contains the tombs of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and of Ambrose Dudley, earl of Warwick, a monument to Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, and a beautiful E window. The church also contains the altar-tomb of Thomas Beauchamp, eleventh earl of Warwick, who began to rebuild the church in the reign of Edward III.; a monument to Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, who rebuilt the castle in the reign of James I.; and a brass to Thomas Beauchamp, twelfth earl of Warwick, who completed the rebuilding of the church, and whose altar-tomb was destroyed in the fire. Underneath the choir is the crypt, partly of Norman work, and containing the ancient ducking-stool. St Nicholas' Church also dates from the Norman times or earlier, has a tower and spire rebuilt in 1748, and was itself rebuilt in 1779. Six other ancient churches were in the town, but have disappeared. St Paul's Church was built in 1844. All Saints, in the suburb of Emscote, was built in 1861 and enlarged in 1872; it contains a fine reredos. There are Roman Catholic, Baptist, Congregational, Plymouth Brethren, Primitive Methodist, Unitarian, and Wesleyan chapels. The cemetery is at Budbrook, was opened in 1855, covers an area of 10¼ acres, and has two mortuary chapels. An abbey and a nunnery were burned by the Danes in 1016. A Black friary was founded in the time of Henry III., a White friary in 1345, and both have disappeared. The hospital of St John the Baptist was founded in the 12th century by William de Newbnrgh for the reception of pilgrims and strangers. The site is now occupied by an Elizabethan manor-house. The priory of St Sepulchre, founded by Henry de Newburgh, earl of Warwick, in 1124, was pulled down in the reign of Henry VIII., and a dwelling-house erected on its site, which passed to Sir John Puckering, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in 1592-96, and is now the property of the Lloyd family. The grammar school was founded by Henry VIII., and reorganized in 1875; it occupies new buildings erected in 1879, and has scholarships and exhibitions to the universities. The other endowed school is held in St Peter's Chapel, built by Henry VI., and situated on the E town-gate. Leicester's Hospital belonged originally to guilds; went after the dissolution of monasteries to Dudley, earl of Leicester; was endowed by him as a collegiate institution for a master and twelve brethren, who must be old soldiers; is a fine specimen of an old half-timbered edifice; and is connected with St James' Chapel, situated on the W towngate. Each brother receives £70 a year, and has to appear abroad in the dress prescribed by the founder-a blue gown with the silver badge of the bear and the ragged staff on the left sleeve; the badges now in use are those worn by the first brethren of the order.

The municipal borough consists of the two parishes of St Mary and St Nicholas, and has a population of 11,903. The parish of St Mary comprises 2975 acres; population, 6137. The parish of St Nicholas comprises 2638 acres; population, 5766. The parliamentary borough comprises 9860 acres; population, 39,100. The two parishes are divided ecclesiastically into St Mary (population, 3219), St Nicholas (3197), St Paul (constituted 1844; population, 2918), and All Saints, Emscote (constituted 1861; population, 2569). The livings are vicarages in the diocese of Worcester; net value of St Mary, £300 with residence; of St Paul, £170 with residence; net value of St Nicholas, £220 with residence; of All Saints, £110 with residence. Patron of St Mary, the Lord Chancellor; of St Nicholas, the Earl of Warwick; of St Paul, the Vicar of St Mary; of All Saints, the Vicar of St Nicholas.

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Ancient CountyWarwickshire 
HundredKington 
Poor Law unionWarwick 

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.


Church Records

The Warwickshire County Record Office hold the following registers for Warwick:

ParishBaptismsMarriagesBurials
All Saints (Emscote)1861-19671861-19901873-1987
St Mary1611-19741611-19961611-1992
St Nicholas1539-19671539-19911539-1986
St Paul1849-19671849-19731849-1899

Most of the records prior to 1911 have been digitised and are available on Ancestry.co.uk


Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Warwick from the following:


Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Warwickshire is available to browse.


Maps

Online maps of Warwick are available from a number of sites:


Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Warwickshire papers online:


Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of Warwickshire 1619 is available on the Heraldry page.

DistrictWarwick
CountyWarwickshire
RegionWest Midlands
CountryEngland
Postal districtCV34
Post TownWarwick

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