Warwickshire is one of the many landlocked counties in the West Midlands, home to pretty villages and market towns, beautiful countryside for walking and canal strolls. If you want a ramble by a towpath or drift along a narrowboat to watch the world go by, this place is for you!
Steeped in history, it sits on the Rivers Avon, Leam and Stour, with many beautiful walking routes. Parts of The Cotswolds flow into this county, and the area also has stunningly beautiful parks and gardens.
Home to (part of) The Cotswolds
The Cotswolds is England’s largest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Although mostly in Gloucestershire, it spills into several other counties, including Warwickshire. Covering 800 square miles, the name is a blend of Cot (sheep enclosure – ie. dry stone walls) and Wold (a hill). So the name literally means ‘sheep enclosure on a hill’.
Larry Grayson’s Beloved Home Town
Nuneaton is a historic town, with a beautiful church and museum, and a park that contains remnants of the old Nuneaton Priory. Although the counties of Derbyshire and Leicestershire are furthest from the sea, Ordnance Survey says that the small town of Nuneaton is the exact centre point of England.
A much-loved former resident (who was born in Nuneaton and never left) was TV presenter Larry Grayson. Born to a single mother, Ethel White Ethel White (not wanting her son to be adopted) wrapped her baby in a blanket and handed him over to a family at Nuneaton station, and continued to visit her son.
They remained close friends, despite calling his adoptive family ‘the most beautiful, wonderful people on God’s earth’. When his foster mother died, his foster sister brought him up and they lived together until his death.
His beautiful and talented folk singer co-star Isla St Clair was left unimpressed, when the BBC tried (and failed) to revive the popular Generation Game show a few years back. Lacking the ‘good fun’ of the original, she said that people longed for a show that ‘doesn’t involve eating worms or awful revelations that should have been kept indoors’.
Today there is controversy over Labour planning to flatten a good part of old buildings in Nuneaton (destroying green belt land) to build new homes. The town has overall poor health, and providing walkable communities and leaving nature intact (and preserving land for small farmers) likely would do more good.
The Birthplace of The Game of Rugby
The game of rugby was indeed born in the market town, in 1823. A young boy while playing football, decided to pick up the ball and run with it. This sport of course then influenced American football, on the other side of the pond.
If you think that you can knock vegans down with a feather, meet Green Gazelles, England’s first vegan rugby team! It was more an accident, as the founder switched diets, to help support his partner, who faced a spine operation due to a herniated disk. They switched to heal her chronic back pain to avoid the operation. It worked. So he realised just how good plant foods are to prevent inflammation, a common theme in rugby.
