1950s Leamington

Memories of Archery Road

My memories of living in Archery Road I lived in Archery Road from 1945-1965.  My parents were stationed at RAF Gaydon during the Second World War and they married in 1944 in London (they were both Londoners).  I was born in February 1945.  After renting in Leamington (there were no married quarters in those days), … Read more

Charles Richard Burgis: A memoir of an old-fashioned grocer

Charles Richard Burgis was descended from a line of traders in Oxfordshire going back to the late 17th century. Some of our Burgis ancestors were millers in Benson, and I have a certificate of Indenture of a James Burgess, dated 1761, from his apprenticeship to Henry Goodwin, a Tallow Chandler and Soap Boiler in Benson. … Read more

Feldon School

Feldon School was set up at Milverton Hill by Dr J.L. and Mrs S.A. Matthews in the summer of 1950.  They had taken over a small private school, ‘Ardmore’ based at 69 Willes Road/corner of Leam Terrace in September 1948, when Ardmore’s previous owners left to run a boarding establishment in Monmouth.   In a matter … Read more

Bath Place School in the 1940s

History Group Member Jeff Clarke was a pupil at Bath Place School just after WW2, until he left to take up an Apprenticeship at Henry Griffiths’ jewellery factory at the age of 15. He recorded these reminiscences of his school days with Margaret Rushton. He remembers the overcrowding, in the Infants, Juniors and Seniors, – … Read more

Leamington’s Basque Connection

As a result of the Spanish Civil War, over 4000 children, some only just over the age of six, were evacuated from Northern Spain to Britain in 1937. Suffering extreme hardship, violence, imprisonment without trial, and widespread poverty under the Franco regime, for the families of the Basque evacuees life had become an endless struggle … Read more