This page is one of several pages which are based on articles in our book entitled Royal Leamington Spa, A History in 100 Buildings which was published in 2018 and is no longer in print. This building stands on the corner of Pound Lane and Cubbington Road. It was designed by John Cundall in 1882 as the … Read more
An article about the Camouflage Directorate which operated in Leamington in the Second Word War can be viewed HERE. This article shows the unveiling a commemorative plaque on the Regent Hotel on 24th September 2025 by the Mayor, Councillor Ruggy Singh. The hotel was the headquarters of the Directorate. The hotel was requisitioned by the … Read more
Kinmond Court 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 … Read more
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
Elizabeth Anne Galton was a Victorian gentlewoman, the eldest of six daughters and three sons born to a wealthy Quaker banking family and related through her mother to the Darwin family. She was not a feisty high-achiever, explorer or philanthropist, but she played a significant role for future historians at least in recording her memories … Read more
In October 1940, a fresh-faced young American named John Buccellato, just out of his teens, enlisted in the United States Army Infantry. His parents who were middle-class Sicillian immigrants lived in an apartment block facing Central Park in New York City. His mother was a milliner. Within two years ‘Butch’ Buccellato found himself in … Read more
Beech Lawn, “Dr Jephson’s splendid mansion” once stood at the corner of Warwick Street and Dale Street. Designed by a local architect, William Startin, it was built by a workforce of 140 in 1830-31 for the Leamington doctor, whose advocacy of a plain diet, exercise and the taking of the Leamington waters made the Spa … Read more
Long before Concorde went into service and as long ago as 1943, the Coventry firm of Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth developed an experimental, tail-less jet aircraft, the AW52 which became known as the Flying Wing. This aircraft had no fuselage or tail section and was essentially a large fixed wing powered by two Rolls … Read more
I was recently in Clarendon Street watching the demolition of the old chapel, originally known as the Free Baptist Chapel. The construction came about when a group broke away from the Warwick Street chapel, ostensibly over the lack of provision of a school. The new chapel cost some £2, 098 and was opened in June … Read more
Like its former distinguished Headmaster Dr Joseph Wood, seen here, the old Leamington College building in Binswood Avenue has recently passed into history . . . as a school. Designed by the architect David Squirhill and opened in 1848 it was the first purpose-built school in Leamington. Apart from a brief period as … Read more
When I was a young lad growing up in the nineteen- fifties, my father was a baker in the small Warwickshire town of Southam. In 1947 he had purchased the old windmill and the bakery business that went with it and my two brothers and I moved in to the small cottage that went with the … Read more
The world’s foremost elephant trainer began his working life as a circus acrobat and when he died was described by the Leamington Courier newspaper as a ‘retired giant of the entertainment industry’. The dapper little man with the magnificent white moustache was one of Leamington’s most recognisable residents in the years between the two world … Read more
Contact the Secretary, Margaret Rushton: secretary@leamingtonhistory.co.uk
June 30, 2026