Warwickshire

Warwickshire (pronounced worrickshur) is a landlocked county in central England. The county has a population of around 500,000, and covers 489,405 acres (198,055 hectares). The county town is Warwick.

Famous people from Warwickshire include: William Shakespeare, from Stratford-upon-Avon, George Eliot from near Nuneaton. and Rupert Brooke from Rugby.

Due to administrative boundary changes when the West Midlands county was created in 1974, administrative Warwickshire now has a rather odd shape, looking a bit like a large chunk has been bitten out of it where Birmingham, Coventry and Solihull are.

For local government purposes, Warwickshire is divided into a number of district councils. These are North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Rugby, Stratford, and Warwick.

Towns and villages of Warwickshire

• Atherstone
• Alcester
• Bedworth
• Brandon
• Coleshill
• Henley-in-Arden
• Kenilworth
• Leamington Spa
• Marlcliff,
• Marston,
• Marston Doles,
• Nuneaton
• Napton-on-the-Hill
• Polesworth
• Rugby
• Shipston-on-Stour
• Southam
• Stratford-upon-Avon
• Warwick

Places of interest

• Mary Arden's House
• Draycote Water
• Kenilworth Castle
• Rollright Stones
• Rugby School
• Warwick Castle

The administrative county of Warwickshire is bounded to the north west by Staffordshire and the West Midlands county (the latter formed in the local government reorganisation of 1974), east by Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, south by Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, and West by Worcestershire.

The bulk of Warwickshire's population is in the north and west of the administrative county, The north of it has traditionally been industrial, with industrial towns such as Nuneaton, Bedworth and Rugby, whose traditional industries included coalmining, textiles, cement and engineering.

The west of Warwickshire includes the prosperous towns of Leamington Spa, Warwick, Kenilworth and Stratford-upon-Avon.

The south of the county is largely rural and sparsely populated, and includes no towns of any significant size.

Historic Warwickshire

The historic County of Warwickshire includes the cities of Birmingham and Coventry, it also includes a small strip of land near Tamworth which administered as part of Staffordshire. Since 1974 these have not formed part of the administrative county, although they remain in the historic County of Warwickshire to this day.

History

In the 8th and 9th century, what is now Warwickshire was a part of the kingdom of Mercia. In the late 9th century, the Mercian kingdom declined and in 874 large parts of Mercia to the east of Warwickshire were ceeded to Danish invaders by King Alfred's treaty with the Danish leader Guthrum. Watling Street on the eastern edge of Warwickshire became the boundary between the Danelaw (the kingdom of the Danes) to the east and the Mercia to the west. There was also a boundary with the kingdom of Wessex to the south.

Due to its location at the frontier between the two kingdoms, what is now Warwickshire needed to organise defences against Danish invaders. This was done by Ethelfleda "Lady of the Mercians" daughter of King Alfred, who was responsible for the building of the first parts of Warwick Castle at Warwick. Defences against the Danes were also built at Tamworth see Tamworth Castle.

Periodic fighting between Danes and Saxons occured until the 11th century. Because of its castle Warwick grew into a prosperous market town, and a powerful town within the Mercian kingdom. In the early 11th century, new internal boundaries within the Mercian kingdom were drawn and Warwickshire came into being as the land administered from Warwick.

In the English Civil War in the 17th century the Battle of Edgehill (1642) was fought in Warwickshire, near the Oxfordshire border.