The title of this article is ambiguous, intentionally. It has echoes of John Ruskin’s book called “The Stones of Venice”. He was engaged with the architecture of Venice for many years and wrote about the way that stone and other material had been used to construct buildings and decorate them over several centuries and in several styles. He was in Leamington for a few weeks in 1841. Click to see our page about him. He had very firm views on what was good and bad use of stone. One quote will suffice: “We require from buildings, as from men, two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.”
Architecture
When looking at Leamington we do not have quite such impressive antecedents as Venice. The structure of the earliest buildings was probably based on trees as raw material with timber for the frames and smaller branches, twigs and thatch for the roof. Probably a great deal of mud and similar substances were then used to fill the large openings with wattle and daub and to plug the draughts through a multitude of gaps. The most obvious remnants of this type of building are the “old” cottages in Church Street (Nos 15 and 17) . These are Listed Grade II and described as around 1700.
The more durable buildings were made of stone and include the parish churches of All Saints at Leamington Priors and St Mary Magdalene in Lillington and the manor house at Lillington. These deserve articles of their own.
There do not appear to be any brick-built buildings remaining from much before 1800. The earliest after this date were simple houses of two storeys. However when the local economy took off as the spa developed the influence of Regency designs in Cheltenham, Bath and London led to taller buildings with a Regency influence. London was known for copybook designs called ‘rates’ which were set out in the London Building Act 1774; the rate was strictly related to the floor area. Similar designs were adopted for some streets in Leamington such as the earlier buildings on the west side of the Parade south of Regent Street. There is some debate about whether all these brick-built house were faced with stucco, either originally or at a later date. One theory is that the stucco was originally coloured to look like Bath stone.
At the same time building designs adopted certain features of the designs of Andrea Palladio (1508 – 1580) which were based on buildings in ancient Greece and Rome. Therefore we find columns, pillars and pilasters using all the various Palladian ‘orders’ including Corinthian, Doric, Ionic and Tuscan. Some porches such as Agriculture House at No 1 Newbold Terrace are two tiered. A little further along is Rossmore House which is “well” restored with typical Palladian features and Corinthian columns. Many such houses are found around the town.
Rather at odds with this Palladianism was the revival of elements of the Gothic or Gothick style. Houses with suggestions of this school are also found around the town; perhaps Harrington House was the epitome of a combination of styles which stood where the Royal Spa Centre sits today.
In the future it is hoped to develop more pages about architectural styles in the town and the individual architects who provided designs for the town. These may include William Thomas, John Cundall, Joseph Bateman, William Russell, Edmund Mitchell, George Gilbert Scott, Henry Clutton, Peter Frederick Robinson, John George Jackson, William Dowler and Daniel Goodman Squirhill.
Inscriptions on Stone
Another aspect of the Stones of Leamington is the stone which provided the raw material for foundation stones and memorials on many buildings and other structures. We illustrate a dozen from around the town in this Gallery.
Sculptures
There are also several sculptures in the town including –
Mick Jeffs, March 2016
