LillingtoLillingtonn Local History Society

NOVEMBER 2018 NUMBER 26 NOVEMBER 2018

Lillington Local History Society Lillington Local History Society Is Ten Programme of meetings Years Old !!!

Regular monthly meeting at the This special edition of the newsletter charts Lillington Free Lillington’s history over the past 1000 years Church, Cubbington Road, at 4.30 pm on the first Friday of each Cubbington Road with Hereford Cattle month. - pre World War 1 and now

Contact us by -Coming to one of the Society’s monthly meetings, -or by referring any queries about the society, Images Peter Coulls contributions, photographs or From reminiscences to Graham Cooper –  A Saxon church telephone 01926 426942 and village settlement  The 16 households in the “town” of Lilla in the 1086 tax records [Domesday Book] WHY NOT VISIT  350 years as part of the Kenilworth Abbey monastic estate the Lillington  The 1711 survey map showing the roads we still use today Local History  The development of grand villas as Royal Leamington Spa Society Website became fashionable The website  Victorian/ terraces for shop keepers, married servants from the big address is: houses and the “new” lower middle class www.lillingtonhi To the vast expansion of house building before and after WW2 story.org

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LILLINGTON HAS A HISTORY TOO

It is easy to imagine an area of sprawling housing, such as Lillington, as a place with no history. But the traces of a thousand years of history lie just beneath the surface. The principal roads still follow the tracks laid down in medieval times, Bins Brook still follows the line of Valley Road [albeit in a pipe], Lucas’ Brewery is now the Maltings, and the residents of Kiln Close struggle to make their gardens grow on the site of the Brickworks. The church stands proud on Saxon footings, the roof timbers in Manor Farm and the Bowls Club betray their ancient origins, buses still head for Stud Farm and the River Avon continues to flood at Chesford Bridge.

In 2008 local residents were asked by the Record Office if they were “Interested in local history?” Linda Price, the Community Development Worker, called a meeting at Lillington Library.

The six people who attended learned that the Record Office had been allocated funding to research the Waller Collection. This consisted of recipe books, letters and legal documents relating to the Waller, Wise and Wathen families - previous landowners in the district. The Outside the Box project was designed to involve local people in the research - and we were invited to take part.

In January 2009, the original five members of the Lillington Local History Society held their first official meeting in the Chain in Crown Way. As well as making a display ‘banner’ that recorded high points in Lillington’s history, as part of the Outside the Box project, they decided to work to bring together existing research into the Lillington area and to start recording local residents’ memories of the recent past.

Ten years, and 110 meetings later, fifty to sixty people meet every month to discuss and learn about Lillington’s history. The Society has a regular programme of speakers who have a particular local interest, and arranges visits to local places of historic importance. The Society leads a regular walking tour of Lillington’s historic centre, gives talks to pupils from local schools and residential Homes, and makes regular contributions to a wide range of community events. The Society has helped to celebrate local celebrities including the Blue Plaque in Manor Road [left] for Herbert Cox the artist, and to Richard Maudslay, ‘Dam Buster’ pilot, in Vicarage Road.

This special edition of the newsletter gives a brief overview of Lillington’s history over the last 1000 years and is to encourage local residents to celebrate and record their past

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LILLINGTON IN 1086

The Domesday Book, 1086, records that Lillington consisted of 16 households, four plough lands, nine acres of meadow land, woodland and the mill [presumably on the site of the current water mill opposite the present day Rugby Ground]. Four of the adults are identified as “slaves”: a man or woman who owed personal service to another, and who was un-free, and unable to move home or work or change allegiance, to buy or to sell, without permission. The value of Lillington to the Lord was £2, and had doubled since the Norman invasion twenty years before.

You can just make out the name Lillington in the original Latin text. It has a red line through it. One imagines that the settlement lay on the rising land around the church, roughly where Manor Road and Farm Road now exist.

The Lord of the Manor in 1086 was the Count of Meulan. He was an older brother of Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick. He fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and was leader of the infantry on the right wing of the Norman army.

“He was as yet but a young man and he performed feats of valour worthy of perpetual remembrance. At the head of a troop which he commanded on the right wing he attacked with the utmost bravery and success".

His service earned him the grant of more than 91 English manors, including Lillington, confiscated from the defeated English.

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LORDS OF THE MANOR OF LILLINGTON

In 1086 most of the manor of Lillington belonged to the Count of Meulan; a smaller portion [an eighth] was owned by Turchil of Warwick. The land held by the Count passed through many hands until Thomas Wagstaffe sold it in 1611 to Sir Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke of Warwick Castle. His descendants sold the manor and estate of nearly 500 acres to the Wise family in 1805. The land held by Turchil in 1086 was granted to the newly founded Priory of Kenilworth in 1121, whose property it remained until the Dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. We know that the church flourished under the tenure of the Abbey: a small chapel was added to the south side of the main church around 1380, and a west tower about 1480. A bell cast at that time still hangs in the tower.

Image: Clker.com

In 1596 Elizabeth 1st granted the manor of Lillington to Sir John Puckering, of the Priory, Warwick, whose descendants held it until 1709 when it was purchased by Henry Wise.

Left: The “miser’s cottage”, formerly in Cubbington Road, was probably typical of the cottages in the village. The image below shows the cottage once on the site of the present Free Church.

All of Lillington’s farms were held by tenants, paying an annual rent to their landlord. Manor Farm, in Lime Avenue, for example, was leased to William Beamish in 1805 for an annual rent which included ‘ three pounds of good clean honeysuckle, three pounds of good clean trefoil, [and] half a bushel of good clean rye.’ The rent covered the land between present day Lime Avenue and Telford Avenue, and included meadows and pasture land; barns, stables and other buildings

The estate passed by family connection to Major-General Sir George Waller of Woodcote in 1888. Sir Wathen Arthur Waller died in 1947, left the manor to his widow, Viola, Lady Waller.

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1711 : THE “EXACT MAP OF LILLINGTON”

James Fish, a local artist land surveyor, and one time Clerk to the parish of St Mary’s in Warwick, finished his ‘exact’ map of the Manor of Lillington.

The map shows that Lillington stretched from the Chesford Bridge over the river Avon in the north to the boundaries of Offchurch in the south. North is at the bottom of the map.

The map is very important because it shows that:

 Lillington’s farm land was divided into four great fields.  Each field was divided into strips so that each of the seven tenant farmers in Lillington had an equal share of good and poor land.  Each strip was about an acre, the amount of land an ox team could plough in a morning; they rested in the afternoon.  Lillington land is a mixture of soils, with its share of sand and gravel. Upper Lenchams Furlong, in the Nether Field towards Leamington, was well known locally for its clay, and would one day become the brickworks.  The pattern of principal roads is much the same as today, although some names have changed.  Cubbington Road was named as Great Church Way, and Sandy Lane as Mill Lane, leading as it still does to the watermill [on the side road to Hill Wootton].  The cottages and principal farms were clustered close to the church and Manor House.  Many of the cottages had small plots of land attached to them, known as closes. These were for fruit growing, vegetables and pasture for any animals belonging to the tenant.  Cottagers paid rent. Widow Rawbone paid1d a year; Edward Hudson paid 13 shillings and four pence, 160 times as much. Widow Nicholls, a principal tenant, paid £5 12/-, about the cost of an average horse or cow.  One cottage in Lillington, ‘new built for a poor family’ was not valued by James Fish, and appears to have been excused rent.

James Fish was commissioned to make the map because it was so difficult to tell which land belonged to Lord Brooke and which to Henry Wise. This had led to disputes in the past and “has been found very inconvenient, ...and has often occasioned disputes in plowing, in mowing their grass, and is a discouragement to husbandry.” The disputes were settled finally in 1730, under the Enclosure Act, when the great fields were divided up into fields and assigned to particular farms and landowners.

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LILLINGTON’S FARMS

The principal farms in central Lillington were Manor Farm [Lime Avenue], Village Farm [on the site later occupied by the Walnut Tree Pub and then Tesco’s] and Grange Farm [junction of Pound Lane and the Cubbington Road].

The map on the left shows Manor Farm two hundred years ago. Mary Beamish farmed the land when her husband died. The inventory, taken at her death in 1861, records that the farm, between modern day Lime Avenue and Telford Avenue, was 230 acres in size. She grew winter beans, wheat, barley, oats and peas. She also had sheep, six horses and cattle.

This larger extract from the map shows the farm buildings in red. Lime Avenue runs up from Cubbington Road at the bottom of the plan but stops at the farm. Farm Road goes to the left. The current bowls club is field 19. The white oblong on the left of the map is the Manor House. The modern Lime Avenue runs along the right hand boundary of field 20

Grange Farm looking up Cubbington Road

The nineteenth century plan of Grange Farm shows the Midland Oak junctions in the centre [now roundabouts], with the road to Warwick going left. Grange Farm is to the right, on the Cubbington Road. You can just see the course of the Bins Brook between the two junctions. It has come from Valley Road.

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LILLINGTON 1830-1914

The Victorian and Edwardian eras were times of great expansion in Leamington, driven by the successful development of the town as a Spa. Many of the grand villas, from Beauchamp Avenue northwards, were built within Lillington, although the proximity to the Brickworks must have caused some annoyance when the wind was in the East.

The centre of Lillington began to change radically around 1900 with the construction of the terraces in Manor BREWERY Road, Farm Road and Lime Avenue. The 1901 census shows that many occupants in Manor Road held responsible jobs. BRICK WORKS Some worked at one of the ‘big’ houses, ie Richard Burton [number 3] and George Taplin [number 20] were coachmen. Others had managerial posts or responsible trades: wine merchants’ manager, tanner’s manager, coachman, pork butcher, gardener, bicycle maker and domestic groom.

The Edwardian terrace on Lime Avenue, starting with the [current carpet] corner shop was built in 1902-4. The shop was the only house in the row to have a proper upstairs bathroom. It was also the post office. Several of the houses still have their original metal covers for the coal chute to the cellar, and two have their original tiled front paths.

Land along the west side of Lillington Road was developed during the nineteenth century. These were big houses for the wealthy or newly retired. Castel Froma is listed on the 1871 census as occupied by George Unett 61, a magistrate, his wife Elizabeth 45 and their son George Unett 26. They had two live-in servants. The 1901 census records that the house was occupied by Elizabeth Unett, now a widow, her son George aged 57 and Ann Nash, 57, the live-in cook. The house became the Royal Midlands County Home for the Disabled in 1957 when the hospital moved from Tachbrook Road.

James Hirons lived at 53 Lillington Road. He made his fortune from the “blue” in washing powders. He left £250,000 to fund a convalescent home, which continues to provide accommodation today.

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LILLINGTON SCHOOL

There has been a school in Lillington for nearly 150 years. White’s Directory of Warwickshire published in 1874 records that “The National School is a neat building erected in 1865. It is supported by subscription and Miss Lucie Luck is the mistress.” Miss Luck had lived over the parish room [at the left hand end of the photograph]. The three rooms were later used as the headteacher’s office.

Kelly’s Directory for Warwickshire, 1892, indicates that the school contained 90 pupils. The newer, right hand portion of the building was erected in 1898 at a cost of £1,200, and contained four classrooms. A plaque marking the Queen’s diamond jubilee in 1897 was erected on the wall, where it can still be seen. Miss Catherine Cuttler, who had been noted as the Headmistress in 1892, held the position until her retirement in 1927.

A wood and glass sliding partition was erected in the largest room in the “new” school in 1914 and central heating replaced open coal fires. From about 1920 the older children transferred at the age of 11 to the Central School in Leicester Street. In 1952 a new Junior School was built behind the old school; the old school is now private housing.

THE HOLT

The eight houses facing Cubbington Road were built in 1927 by Leamington Slum Clearance Ltd for families living in very poor accommodation behind the Parade and in the lower town.

From the Spectator 26 November 1927:

Leamington’s MANY visitors have been shocked to discover the appalling slums that exist in this popular health resort.

The original plans show an outside toilet, the bathroom next to the scullery, and a copper in the kitchen to heat the water. There were three bedrooms and a “cycle house”. The weekly rent was 10/- [50p]. The architect estimated that each house would cost just over £513 to build including the land. He gave his services free. It was a condition that the slum being left in Leamington when the family moved to Lillington would never be inhabited again. The money for the new houses came from donations and various fundraising events including a procession of decorated cars and bicycles through the centre of Leamington.

The Mayor, Alderman Holt, gave his name to the project.

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THE IMPACT OF TWO WORLD WARS

A poignant reminder of the loss to families during World War 1 has been graphically recorded by Dick Fisk on a map of Lillington. Each house from where this sacrifice was made is identified with a red dot on the map of Lillington.

World War Two A Blue Plaque, commemorating the life of Henry Eric Maudslay, DFC, was unveiled at 1 Vicarage Road, Lillington, on 27th July 2017. Henry Maudslay flew over forty operations and miraculously survived the attack on the Mohne Dam, only to be shot down near the German-Dutch border as he returned to base on the night of 17 May 1943. Maudslay and his crew were killed outright when their plane burst into flames.

LILLINGTON BOMBED

“I remember the crater and extensive damage caused by the land mine which fell near the junction of Kinross Road and Telford Avenue. My workmate, Tom Shields a plumber, married Phyllis Franks of Cubbington in 1939/40. Their new home was 114, Kinross Road, and had only recently been built. I gave them a small wedding present, a glass jug. This was one of many items which got broken in the sideboard of their home that night.” Peter Chater Image reproduced by kind permission of Warwickshire County Record Office I

CLOISTER CROFTS POW CAMP Camp 25 was at the western end of Cloister Crofts. It housed Italian prisoners of war. They built part of Gresham Avenue .

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THE GREAT DEVELOPERS

Lillington began to lose its “village” feel in the 1930s as the principal landowners began to sell off land to meet the growing need for housing.

Lime Avenue was straightened at the junction with Farm Road and semi- detached houses were built opposite what is now the Bowling Club. Building stopped for the Second World War, and the post- war houses are distinctly different. They can be identified by the decorative exposed brick work panels on the corners of the houses.

Eddie McGregor rented Manor Farm during the First World War and then, in 1920, bought it from the Waller family. The McGregors came to Leamington from Scotland in 19th century and opened stables in the Radford Road. Eddie was persuaded to start selling land for housing in the 1930s. The family were very proud of their Scottish ancestry and used Scottish names for the roads: Cameron Close, Stirling Avenue , Montrose Avenue, etc.

After the Second World War, Cyril Lloyd, a carpenter and joiner worked in the firm of Walter Hill, the major local authority house builder. An ambitious and far-sighted man, He set up his own business by selling his house in Westlea Road and using his war gratuity.

In 1951 ACLloyd and Hopkins Ltd. was created to concentrate on the large corporation housing contracts. Cyril Lloyd was introduced to Eddie McGregor in 1952. Eddie came to an arrangement with Lloyd and Hopkins to sell them plots of land on a sub-sale basis whereby the land was paid for as each new house was sold. In 1953 development of Manor Farm began again in earnest. Over 750 new dwellings were constructed.

Sydney McGregor, Eddie’s brother, owned the land between the Cubbington Road, Crown Way and beyond to Eden Court. He bred horses. His best known horse was April the Fifth, winner of the Epsom Derby in 1932.

The French House Company bought some of the land from the farm when Sydney McGregor’s daughter decided to sell it after her father’s death. In memory of the land being formerly a Stud Farm, all the roads which lead off Valley Road in the French House development were named after race courses. CH,DJ,CR

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POST WAR CHANGES

Other major changes to Lillington over the past 70 years include:

CROWN WAY Developed in the 1950s as a community centre. Lloyds Pharmacy was originally Neale’s - the Chemist and Optician.

VILLAGE FARM, THE WALNUT TREE AND TESCO The junction of Crown Way and Cubbington Road was initially covered by the buildings of Village Farm. The Walnut Tree public house, later built on the site, was converted by Tesco into a convenience store.

GRESHAM ROAD [below right] The prefabs [pre-fabricated houses] at the top of Gresham Road were much loved by their occupants. The image dates from 1967. The road over the hill to Leamington was constructed by Italian prisoners of war.

HEXAGONAL HOUSES: Cubbington Road [above left] Built in 1967 to investigate the practicality and manufacturing potential of producing a system built prefabricated dwelling capable of meeting the growing demand for family homes. The four hexagonal houses were the only ones completed for private sale. They originally cost £3500 each and were unique as actual houses

EDEN COURT

Opened in 1960, the block comprises 89 one and two bedroom flats over fifteen floors. A local lady reports that, when she moved in, everyone had to have matching net curtains and that there was carpet on the landings.

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PRESENT LINKS TO LILLINGTON’S HISTORIC PAST

Lillington Board of Health 1859-1890 [See left] The Board met once a month at Corporation House on the corner of Cubbington Road and Pound Lane.

The parish church of St Mary Magdalene

Lillington Parish Church is Anglo Saxon in origin. The present building dates mainly from the 1480’s and the Victorian period, but probable Saxon work can still be seen in the south wall of the chancel, and there is a Saxon doorway inside.

Leisured visitors to the Spa at Leamington would have made the walk up the hill and across the fields to Lillington to see the famous ‘Miser’s Grave’. Opposite the vestry door, the headstone of William Treen, who died aged 77 on 3rd February, 1810, bears this salutary epitaph,

I Poorly Liv'd and Poorly Dy'd, Poorly Bury'd and no one Cry'd.

Right: The Midland Oak In its prime: in 1935. The current tree was planted in 1988. It was grown from an acorn from the original oak This had been felled in 1967 as it had become a danger due to its age and vicinity next to the road, roughly on the site of the present day roundabout.

The listed Grade II Manor House, once standing in grounds of three acres, lies at the centre of the old Lillington village. Built of limestone ashlar with plain tile roof and brick chimneys, the L- shaped three-storeyed house may have been rebuilt around 1740 by William Smith the Younger on the site of a farmhouse: sales documents from the 1930s mention stables, barns and outhouses. For the last century or so, it has been a private residence.

Mill Lane, now called Sandy Lane, led north from Lillington towards Kenilworth. A water mill, see right, probably on the same site as the current building just past the Leamington Rugby Club, and in the turning to Hill Wootton, is recorded in the 1086 Domesday Survey. 12