It was unthinkable at one time to buy shoes from anywhere other than shops just selling shoes. Every need was catered for from a selection of styles, sizes and colours for ladies, gentlemen and children. Service was a priority and assistants frequently climbed ladders to find the customer’s choice. From Smiths in Clemens Street, along … Read more
Nineteenth-Century Leamington boasted well over 300 pubs and beer houses. Many of these have been demolished or used for other purposes. However, The Star and Garter, at Nos 4 and 6 Warwick Street, survived and is now the oldest Leamington pub still in operation on the same site today. According to local historian Lyndon Cave, … Read more
From the Portobello Bridge between Warwick and Leamington can be seen an intriguing group of old brick riverside buildings. The Rock Mill, a watermill built in 1792, is the most prominent; this stands next to a substantial Georgian house. Both of these have been redeveloped in recent years, with a row of modern town houses … Read more
The Regent Hotel opened on 19th August 1819, – amongst the earliest of the buildings erected north of the River Leam as the Spa expanded. On a triangular plot, it was wedged between Regent Street, the Parade, and what later became Regent Grove and the site of the new Town Hall. The land had once belonged … Read more
The main cinema in Leamington Spa in 2018 is the Vue which was originally named the Regal and has also been the Apollo. It is on the corner of Portland Place West with Augusta Place. It was opened in September 1931 and is in Art Deco style designed by Horace G Bradley of Birmingham. It is on the site … Read more
The expansion in the population of Leamington Spa brought with it the challenge of treating sewage, a subject not often recognised. It was common practice in the 1850s to allow such effluent to be discharged into the nearest watercourse or river, with the attendant risk of spreading infectious diseases. Other sources of contamination were from … Read more
This article relates mainly to the first houses built on the Parade from Regent Street towards Victoria Bridge but also includes the single building on the north-west corner of the crossroads of the Parade and Regent Street. First, a little about the history of this area. The southern end of what is now the Parade from the … Read more
Benjamin Satchwell and William Abbotts were credited with the initial development of Leamington as a spa town. Once a source of spa water was discovered by Satchwell and Abbotts in 1784 on land belonging to Abbotts in Bath Lane (later Bath Street) a bath house was built and Satchwell set about promoting Leamington Priors as … Read more
Built as the Wise family home in the Queen Anne style in about 1740 with a handsome Chippendale staircase and two dovecotes at the foot of a three-acre garden, the Manor House subsequently saw many alterations and adaptations. When Matthew Wise married, he built Shrubland Hall on the outskirts of the town, leaving the Manor House to become … Read more
What is today known as The Loft Theatre Company began as the Warwick and Leamington Dramatic Club which was founded in 1922. The first performance was The Silver Box which was staged at the Spencer Street schoolroom in 1923. It became the only theatre in town when the Theatre Royal (see article) was converted to a cinema … Read more
There is a substantial building with a certain ‘presence’ on the east side of Kenilworth Street which is now the home of many retired people. At its heart is a Victorian building enlivened with patterns of different colours of bricks. Many will recall that in the 1960s part of it was the home of Griffin and … Read more
What became known as “The Jewel Factory” was based on Tachbrook Road, Royal Leamington Spa, where all kinds of jewellery and other items made of precious metal were manufactured. The firm of Henry Griffith was established in Birmingham in 1850 and moved to a new purpose-built factory in Leamington in 1919/20. The move from Birmingham was … Read more
Contact the Secretary, Margaret Rushton: secretary@leamingtonhistory.co.uk
November 7, 2026
November 6, 2026
November 6, 2026