LEAMINGTON
Leamington is charmingly situated in the heart of the county, towards
the eastern boundary of the wide amphitheatre of gradually rising hills
of which its sister town of Warwick, distant but two miles from it, is
the centre. The oldest portion of the town is built on the low–lying
ground to the south side of the River Leam, and was in former years
known as the old town. Modern Leamington, on the other hand, which is
so picturesque, and consists of fine villas, well–planned streets and
avenues, lies on the northern side of the river, and has its origin
from the time onwards when the baths were first discovered and turned
to good account by local enterprise.
One of the most conspicuous charms of Leamington is its profusion of
foliage; and close to some of its main streets, and, indeed, bordering
them, are beautiful trees, all of which, from their variety, are seldom
leafless at one and the same time. The modern town at the time of its
inception was far more wisely laid out than was usual in former days,
for it is a place of straight and wide avenues and streets, planned
with almost American precision.
[Illustration: COMPTON WYNYATES.]
To those who have never visited Leamington such a description may
not evoke any visions of beauty, but the regularity which marks the
laying out of the town has been wisely tempered by the preservation and
planting, wherever possible, of rows of elms, lindens, and plane trees,
which not only break up the monotony of streets, but impart to the
town an almost garden–like aspect. Notwithstanding, however, the fact
that in the byroads, streets, and avenues of the residential quarters,
more especially of Milverton and Lillington, grass plats separate
the footpaths from the road, adding materially to the beauty and
distinction of the place, the business quarter is no less business–like
than that of other towns. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the American novelist,
has written enthusiastically of Leamington; and those who have resided
in this beautiful spot all the year round can testify that his
statement, that it is a place of charm which is “always in flower,” is
not far from the truth.
The rise of Leamington has been of considerable rapidity, as until the
end of the eighteenth century it was merely an obscure village, and in
the year 1801 the population was only just over three hundred souls,
and the number of houses but sixty–seven.
Its full tide in former years was Leamington Priors, derived from the
fact that the town is built on the banks of the River Leam, and once
belonged to the priors of Kenilworth. In modern days it has become
known as Leamington Spa, the late Queen Victoria, in memory of a
visit she paid to the place in 1838, giving it the title of the Royal
Leamington Spa.
The town is very unlike in appearance its ancient and more celebrated
neighbour Warwick. In fact, whilst the latter has its chief attraction
in antiquity, Leamington has its chief interest as a modern and
fashionable health resort. It is wrong, however, to suppose that
Leamington has no history, and is as entirely modern as its appearance
would lead one at first sight to presume.
The name of the river upon which it stands is of ancient Celtic
origin, and means the elm–tree or elm–bordered stream, and doubtless
in ancient times it was well–wooded for the greater part of its course
on both banks. There are many Celtic river names to be met with in
Warwickshire, and generally these survivals have indicated an ancient
settlement, or at least camp of the invaders, although as regards
Leamington no traces of one now remain if it ever existed.
The town was in ancient times a portion of the very wide possessions
of Turchill, the last and most powerful of all the Saxon earls of
Warwick. In the Domesday Book the estate is put down as containing two
hides, or about two hundred acres of land, the value of which was £4.
There is also a mention of two mills situated on the stream within its
boundaries. Turchill’s son was robbed of this part of his patrimony,
and it was granted by William the Conqueror to a Norman baron, Roger de
Montgomery, who was afterwards created Earl of Shrewsbury.
In those early days the town, or rather perhaps should we say the
hamlet, known as Leamington underwent great vicissitudes of ownership,
for although Roger de Montgomery’s son Hugh inherited the estates, his
brother Robert, to whom they descended during the reign of William
Rufus, called De Beleseme from the name of a castle which belonged
to him, was declared a traitor, and all his possessions, including
Leamington, were seized, and the latter was given to the Bishop of
Lichfield and Coventry. After a few years the possession of it passed
to Geoffrey de Clinton, and was by him granted to Gilbert Nutricius of
Warwick and his heirs, who held it by the service of half a knight’s
fee. For some reason, however, it speedily reverted to the De Clintons,
and Geoffrey de Clinton, son of the original owner, gave it to the
canon and priors of Kenilworth about the year 1166, in whose possession
it remained until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It remained
the property of the Crown till 1563, when Elizabeth granted it to
Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick. He dying without an heir male, his
title became extinct, and from this period Leamington had many owners,
ultimately coming into the possession of the Earls of Aylesford.
Although Leamington in ancient times had its vicissitudes, there is
little of interest historically concerning it until about the year
1784, when Abbotts made the discovery of a second mineral spring, which
caused attention to be focussed on the medicinal properties of the
Leamington waters. It is doubtless to the discovery of these springs,
and others, may be traced the fact that the town in the first years of
the nineteenth century began to be a place of importance and fashion.
Long before then Camden, Speed, and Dugdale had mentioned prominently
the Leamington Waters; and Fuller in 1662, referring to the same
subject, quaintly observes, “At Leamington, two miles from Warwick,
there issue out, within a stride, [out] of the womb of the earth, two
twin springs, as different in taste and operation as Jacob and Esau
in disposition; the one salt and the other fresh. This the meanest
countryman does plainly see by their effects; while it would puzzle a
consultation of physicians to assign the cause thereof.”
Notwithstanding Fuller’s opinion, medical writers soon began to
publish speculations concerning mineral waters, and upon these very
springs in particular. The earliest pamphleteer upon record was Dr.
Guidot in 1689, and he was succeeded by many others, including Doctors
Allen, Short, Johnson, Kerr, Kirwan, Middleton, and Loudon. It was Dr.
Allen who first settled in the place, and Mr. William Abbotts, who, in
1786, sunk the second well and erected and opened the first baths in
June of the same year. This well was almost in the centre of the old
village. The third spring or the Road Well, is situated on the high
road from Warwick to Daventry and London, and was discovered in 1790.
Leamington was much patronised by those who either were afflicted by
real or fancied ailments, which the waters might be hoped to cure, and
the efforts of Dr. Abbotts did much to popularise the place. In his
endeavour to spread abroad the fame of the place, he was ably seconded
by his friend Benjamin Satchwell, the village poet and shoemaker, who
had had the good fortune, in 1784, to discover the well on a piece of
land in Bath Street.
Referring to the increased importance, size, and prosperity of the
town, Satchwell wrote:—
If Muster Abbotts had not done,
His baths of laud and praise;
It must have been poor Leamington,
Now, as in former days.
These two men, no doubt, had much to do with the initial stages of the
town’s prosperity, and on the tomb of Satchwell may be traced, but with
difficulty, as the inscription is greatly obliterated:—
Hail the unassuming tomb,
Of him who told where health and beauty bloomed;
Of him whose lengthened life improving ran—
A blameless, useful, venerable man.
The advocacy of these and other Leamingtonians caused the town to
advance rapidly into public favour, and the discovery of other wells up
till the year 1819 served to provide ample accommodation for bathers
and others, making the place one of the most famous health–resorts in
England.
In these days, indeed, Leamington might well have been called “The Bath
of the Midlands,” for to the town were attracted much the same classes
of invalids and fashionable folk as were drawn to its more famous
Somersetshire prototype; and, indeed, Leamington must have been then
even a gayer and more fashionable town than it is at the present time.
From the Leamington of the last few years of the eighteenth century to
the flourishing town of to–day is, indeed, a far cry. Then, according
to one authority, it was little more than a small sequestered village,
to which the mail–coaches came no nearer than Warwick, and any
letters or parcels for the inhabitants could only be obtained by some
enterprising villager going over to the latter place for them.
And even in the first decade of the nineteenth century Macready, the
great actor, writes thus of the place in his diary. Referring to
Birmingham he says: “The summer months were passed there, diversified
by a short stay at Leamington, then a small village consisting only
of a few thatched houses—not one of them tiled or slated; the Bowling
Green being the only one where very moderate accommodation could be
secured. There was in process of erection a hotel of more pretention,
which I fancy was to be the ‘Dog’ or ‘Greyhound,’ but which had some
months of work to fit it for the reception of guests.”
It was in the year 1819 that the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV.,
visited Leamington from Warwick, where he was staying with the Earl of
Warwick; and three years later the Princess Augusta came to the town
to take a course of the waters, and from that time the place may be
considered to have been firmly established in public favour. Quoting
from a contemporary writer, “where but a few years earlier cattle
grazed undisturbedly, yellow corn waved, and the plough–boy whistled
over the Leam, we now behold with surprise and pleasure extensive
mansions arising as if by magic, and tastefully decorated shops
presenting every Metropolitan article of fashion and convenience.”
Some other famous visitors who came to Leamington in the early years
of the last century were the Princess Victoria, in company with her
mother the Duchess of Kent; and later John Ruskin, who testified to
the benefit derived from a six weeks’ course of the Chalybeate Spring
as follows: “My health is in my own hands, I have gone back to brown
potatoes and cherry pie!”
But Leamington of to–day owes a good deal less of its popularity to
its springs than it does to its beautiful situation, and the fact of
it being such an excellent centre for interesting excursions; whilst
hunting people regard the place as an almost unequalled sporting
district, from the circumstance that a fashionable life can be enjoyed
there in conjunction with hunting six days a week, and the choice of
as many packs. Warwickshire, indeed, has been called the third best
hunting county in England, and Leamington must take even a higher place
as a centre for hunting folk.
One of the prettiest features of this town, distinguished nowadays
for its handsome shops and villas, are the Jephson Gardens, covering
an area of some twenty acres, and situated almost in the centre of
the town, the picturesqueness of which is greatly added to by the
presence of the River Leam skirting them along the southern boundary.
This site was rented to trustees for a period of two thousand years
at a pepper–corn rent (if demanded) by the late Mr. Edward Willes, of
Newbold Comyn, with the stipulation that the ground should never be
built upon. The property, which was then a strip of meadow land, was
taken over by the trustees in May 1846, and was immediately laid out by
them in much its present form.
On the opposite side of the river are the Mill Gardens; and on the same
side of the river and along its western circuit has been laid out a
pretty Victoria Park, with its picturesque New River Walk.
Still farther sylvan promenades are afforded by the Pump Room Gardens.
The grounds are several acres in extent, and are beautifully laid out
with ornamental flower–beds and winding paths; whilst on the side next
to the parade is the famous Linden Avenue, three–quarters of a century
old, and forming one of the finest shady promenades in Leamington, or
indeed in any town of the Midlands.
Of ancient public buildings Leamington has practically none, if one
excepts the reconstructed and much altered Pump Room, once the scene of
so much of the fashionable life of the town.
[Illustration: BURTON DASSETT CHURCH.]
None of the other public buildings, with the exception of the Town
Hall, call for particular notice.
There are not a few literary associations with Leamington, and the
Holly Walk, which is a continuation of Regent Grove, a fine tree–lined
avenue, will always possess an interest for lovers of Dickens from the
fact that here the novelist laid the scene of the first meeting between
Edith Granger and Mr. Carker in _Dombey and Son_. Scarcely a more
picturesque spot than this walk, with its row of fine trees running
down the centre, its grass plats, shady seats, and flower beds, could
be found for a meeting of the kind.
The old Bedford Hotel, which was the scene of one of the famous Jack
Mytton’s most remarkable exploits, when for a wager he rode his mare
upstairs into the dining–room, set her at the large table, which she
cleared, jumping over the heads of his assembled friends, and then
continued her course out of the balcony into the street below, has long
disappeared; doubtless to the regret of all hunting folk and of the
curious sightseer.
Like Hawthorne, those who have visited Leamington carry away with
them pleasant memories of a town which, although owing much to natural
beauty of situation, yet owes also not a little to the intelligence and
foresight of those responsible for its development, who may be said
to have coaxed rather than coerced Nature in their efforts to make
the spot one of uncommon rural and urban attractiveness, whilst still
mindful of the demands of exigent moderns.