The Old Town Hall Many residents are unaware that the large Victorian building on the town’s main street, The Parade, is the second town hall to be built in Leamington Spa. The original town hall, a classical building of modest proportions was built in 1830 in High Street, then known as London Road on land … Read more
Leamington’s Vue Cinema started life as ‘The Regal’, designed in Art Deco style by Horace G Bradley and opened in September 1931. It was then one of the 15 largest cinemas in the UK. Remodelled several times since then, it is reputedly haunted, by a lady thought by many to be the late Edith Devis. Mrs … Read more
A presentation by Alan Griffin, Chair of Leamington History Group, about the history of Leamington’s Parish Church. Click on the forward and back arrows to navigate through the presentation. Click on the two-headed arrow symbol in the bottom right to enter full-screen mode.
Portland Street Wesleyan Chapel This was the original purpose built home of Methodism in Leamington. ‘The earliest Leamington Methodists went over to Warwick to worship’, by 1817 William Scott and his wife had founded a place of worship in ‘Barnacle’s Yard, Satchwell St., they later moved to Brunswick St. The next move was to purchase … Read more
Milverton Episcopal Chapel or Pepper Pot Chapel This chapel was built to solve the problem of those of Milverton’s parishioners who preferred not to travel to St. James, or brave the Binn’s brook to worship outside their home parish in a Leamington chapel. The ‘Pepper Pot Chapel’ as it was generally called due to the … Read more
Leamington Episcopal Chapel This was, in 1825, the first of the proprietary chapels or chapel of ease, built in Leamington. The chosen site across the top of the Parade, was at the opposite end of the town from the parish church and it was built on open land, which soon became the centre of a … Read more
The New Church In July 1836 a group of nonconformist worshippers who called themselves Congregationalists opened a new chapel set amongst green meadows near the banks of the river Leam. The architect of this elegant building was Mr John Russell himself a member of the congregation. The chapel was the third nonconformist place of worship … Read more
Many children in early Victorian England never went to school. More than half of them never learned to read or write. For many families, this was of little consequence; with no welfare state and many mouths to feed, their concern was to send their children out to work to earn whatever they could towards the … Read more
All Saints Church is Leamington’s original, and until the early days of the nineteenth century, the only parish church. It is suggested that the building, or at least its predecessor, dated from the 13th. or 14th. century and there is also a mention in the Domesday Book of a priest. The explosion in population brought … Read more
The Palais de Danse was opened on Spencer Street in 1926 and called the Bath Assembly Hall. It was designed by Birmingham architect Horace Bradley for a local entrepreneur, Edith Dowding, who was a partner in the Bath Hotel. The 1920s saw the beginning of a dance craze in Britain and many palaises were built … Read more
The site for the 1831 Town Hall is land at the corner of High Street and Althorpe Street. It was assembled over a long period and in a rather complicated way. The first Town Hall was built by the Leamington Commissioners who had been appointed under the provisions of an 1825 Act of Parliament. They … Read more
(compiled from extracts from ‘living memory’ interviews conducted 2006/2007) Recollections 1920’s-1930’s Over a lifespan of 120 years, there was little structural change in the houses on Althorpe Street from their being built in the mid 1830’s to being demolished in the early1950’s. The street was basically two long rows of terraced houses broken up by … Read more
Contact the Secretary, Margaret Rushton: secretary@leamingtonhistory.co.uk
September 9, 2026
August 12, 2026