Lillington is a suburb of

Leamington Spa Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply LeamingtonEven more colloquially, also referred to as Lem or Leam (). (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Pri ...

, in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Royal Leamington Spa, in the

Warwick District Warwick is a local government district in Warwickshire, England. It is named after the historic county town of Warwick, which is the district's second largest town; the largest town is Royal Leamington Spa, where the council is based. The district ...

in the county of

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

, England. Historically a village which existed before the time of the ''

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

'' (1086), it was incorporated into the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

of Leamington in 1890. Lillington is a ward of

Warwick District Council Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon, Warwickshire, River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined wit ...

and Royal Leamington Spa Town Council.

Geography

Lillington itself has two main areas – the new centre based around Crown Way which contains shops, dry cleaners and a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

. The area was predominantly built as a

council house A council house, corporation house or council flat is a form of British Public housing in the United Kingdom, public housing built by Local government in the United Kingdom, local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing ...

estate from 1950 onwards, and contains three

tower block A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdiction. ...

s. The tallest of these, the fifteen-storey '' Eden Court,'' standing at the highest point of the estate, dominates the skyline and can be seen from south Leamington Spa,

Radford Semele Radford Semele is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Warwickshire, England, situated close to the Regency spa town of Leamington Spa. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 Census, Radford Semele parish has a pop ...

and for miles outside Leamington.The Buildings of England, Pevsner & Wedgwood, Penguin 1966. p. 340. The second, and older area, contains the former village with the

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

of St. Mary Magdalene, the manor house, and some

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

terraced house A terrace, terraced house ( UK), or townhouse ( US) is a type of medium-density housing which first started in 16th century Europe with a row of joined houses sharing side walls. In the United States and Canada these are sometimes known as row ...

s as well as estates of predominantly

semi-detached A semi-detached house (often abbreviated to semi) is a single-family Duplex (building), duplex dwelling that shares one common party wall, wall with its neighbour. The name distinguishes this style of construction from detached houses, with no sh ...

houses built since 1930.

Campion Hills

The ''Campion Hills'' are the highest area of Leamington, rising to an altitude of 97m (318 ft) above OD. Situated to the north of, and above

Newbold Comyn Newbold Comyn is a park on the Eastern edge of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England. History The first mention of Newbold Comyn in history was in the Domesday Book of 1086, which lists one of Leamington's two mills as being situated there. Th ...

park, they offer a view over the whole town. Sited here is Leamington's

transmission tower A transmission tower (also electricity pylon, hydro tower, or pylon) is a tall structure, usually a lattice tower made of steel that is used to support an overhead power line. In electrical grids, transmission towers carry high-voltage transmis ...

which relays TV signals from

Sutton Coldfield Sutton Coldfield or the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield ( ), is a town and civil parish in the city of Birmingham, West Midlands County, West Midlands, England. The town lies around 8 miles northeast of Birmingham city centre, 9 miles south of L ...

and broadcasts local commercial

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

station,

Hits Radio Coventry & Warwickshire Hits Radio Coventry & Warwickshire, formerly Free Radio Coventry & Warwickshire, is an Independent Local Radio station based in Birmingham, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to Coventry and W ...

. Its

Severn Trent Severn Trent plc is a water company based in Coventry, England. It supplies 4.6 million households and business across the Midlands and Wales. It is traded on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Severn Trent, the ...

water treatment Water treatment is any process that improves the quality of water to make it appropriate for a specific end-use. The end use may be drinking, industrial water supply, irrigation, river flow maintenance, water recreation or many other uses, ...

plant serves the whole Leamington area.

runs a

BMX BMX, an abbreviation for bicycle motocross or bike motocross, is a cycle sport performed on BMX bikes, either in competitive BMX racing or freestyle BMX, or else in general street or off-road recreation. History BMX began during the ea ...

track on the hills.

Bins Brook

The Bins Brook is a mainly

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe (fluid conveyance), pipe, reinforced concrete or other materia ...

ed watercourse that runs south into Leamington. Just inside Lillington, on the Leamington town centre side adjacent to the Midland Oak, is a fenced area of meadow plants in a man-made depression. This excavated area is normally dry, but fills from the Bins Brook if it overflows during

flash floods A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice and snow. Flash fl ...

, to reduce the risk of local flooding to property.

The Midland Oak

The

Midland Oak The Midland Oak is an oak tree that grows in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, near the Lillington, Warwickshire, Lillington boundary, at the junction of Lillington Road and Lillington Avenue. A plaque nearby unveiled in 1988 states that the old t ...

by the junction of Lillington Avenue and Lillington Road marks the supposed very centre of England. The original oak is thought to have dated from the 16th century. Having died, it was removed in 1967, which allowed the Lillington Road to be straightened. Its successor was planted in the 1980s, from an acorn collected from the original.

Prehistoric and early remains

In the 1930s

prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

elephant and

woolly rhinoceros The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene epoch. The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. The woolly rhinoceros was larg ...

remains were found in sand and gravel pits in Cubbington Road, near the site of the present Lillington Free Church. Some of these are displayed in Warwick Market Hall Museum.

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistory, prehistoric period during which Rock (geology), stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended b ...

remains have also been found there. Roman artefacts and burials have been discovered in the area of Highland Road and Braemar Road.

Lillington Stud Farm

Lillington was once well known as a centre for horse-breeding at the stud farm owned by Sydney McGregor (1889–1970). McGregor's best known horse was probably

April the Fifth April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. Its length is 30 days. April is commonly associated with the season of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is the ...

, which won the Epsom Derby in 1932. The farm buildings and house stood at the end of Epsom Road. After 1970, the area was developed for housing, with many of the new roads having racing-related names.

Education

The local schools are Lillington Nursery and Primary School, Telford Infant and Telford Junior Schools. The nearest secondary school is

North Leamington School North Leamington School (NLS) is a mixed, non-selective, comprehensive school for students aged 11 to 18 years located at the northeastern edge of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England. It is rated as a ''good'' school by Ofsted, and has 6.7% o ...

. A

Sure Start Sure Start (named Flying Start in Wales, Best Start in Scotland) is a UK Government area-based initiative, announced in 1998 by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, applying primarily in England with slightly different versions in ...

Children’s Centre opened in late 2006, adjacent to the 1950s-built

community centre A community centre, community center, or community hall is a public location where members of a community gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may be open for the whole community or for a sp ...

, and Lillington Library on Mason Avenue.

Churches

The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

of St. Mary Magdalene in Vicarage Road retains some Saxon work, but was largely rebuilt between 1847 and 1884. The late

Perpendicular In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', � ...

tower also remains, with a contemporary bell cast around 1480. With two seventeenth-century bells and five more dating from 1927, the present ring of eight bells was formed. They were re-hung by Nicholsons' of

Bridport Bridport is a market town and civil parish in Dorset, England, inland from the English Channel near the confluence of the River Brit and its tributary the River Asker, Asker. Its origins are Anglo-Saxons, Saxon and it has a long history as a ...

in 2007. The Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady, in Valley Road next to the Public Library, was consecrated in 1963. It has notable stained glass in the ' Dalle de verre' style, designed by

Dom Charles Norris Charles Norris OSB (1909–2004) was a Benedictine monk and dalle de verre stained glass artist who created works for Roman Catholic churches in the UK. Life and work Dom Charles Norris (1909-2004) was a Benedictine monk and glass artist He ...

Buckfast Abbey Buckfast Abbey forms part of an active Benedictine monastery at Buckfast, near Buckfastleigh, Devon, England. Buckfast first became home to an abbey in 1018. The first Benedictine abbey was followed by a Congregation of Savigny, Savignac, later ...

, and made at

Prinknash Abbey Prinknash Abbey (pronounced locally variously as "Prinidge/Prinnish") (International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: ) is a Catholic Church in England and Wales, Roman Catholic monastery in the Vale of Gloucester in the Diocese of Clifton, near the vill ...

. Lillington Free Church is on the north side of Cubbington Road, close to The Holt. File:Lillington Church Warks.jpg, Lillington Parish Church File:Lillington Free Church.jpg, Lillington Free Church File:Lillington Warks Manor House.jpg, Lillington Manor House, Church Lane File:Lillington - Eden Court - geograph.org.uk - 9348.jpg, Eden Court, Lillington, from Mason Avenue Park File:Former Lillington Infant School - geograph.org.uk - 1206291.jpg, Former School and Parish Room, Cubbington Road File:Lillington Warks RC Church.jpg, Lillington RC Church, Valley Road File:Lillington Library.jpg, Lillington County Library, Valley Road File:Old Library, Lillington - geograph.org.uk - 8959.jpg, Former Board of Health meeting room, corner of Cubbington Road and Pound Lane File:Lane to Red House Farm, Lillington Warwickshire.jpg, Lane to Red House Farm.

Civil parish

In 1901 the parish had a population of 1,241. The parish was abolished on 1 April 1902 to form "Leamington".

Nearby places

Lillington adjoins

Cubbington Cubbington is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish with a population of 3,929, adjoining the north-eastern outskirts of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, approximately 3 miles from the town centre. Welsh Road, running throu ...

to the north.

References

External links

Victoria County History, Volume VI – Lillington
{{Royal Leamington Spa Populated places in Warwickshire Former civil parishes in Warwickshire Leamington Spa