Warwickshire
Locator map for the English administrative region of Warwickshire.
County of central England.
Area
1,980 sq km/764 sq mi
Towns and cities
Warwick (administrative headquarters), Nuneaton, Royal Leamington Spa, Rugby, Stratford-upon-Avon (birthplace of the English dramatist Shakespeare)
Physical
rivers Avon, Stour, and Tame; remains of the ‘Forest of Arden’ (portrayed by Shakespeare in
As You Like It)
Features
Kenilworth (
c. 1210) and Warwick (Norman) castles; Edgehill, site of the Battle of Edgehill in 1642, during the English Civil War; annual Royal Agricultural Show held at Stoneleigh
Agriculture
cereals (barley and wheat); dairy farming; fruit; market gardening
Industries
cement; engineering; ironstone, and lime are worked in the east and south; motor industry; textiles; tourism
Population
(2001) 505,900
Famous people
Rupert Brooke (poet), George Eliot (writer), William Shakespeare (dramatist and poet)
Topography Warwickshire is bounded on the north by Staffordshire, and Derbyshire; on the east by Leicestershire and Northamptonshire; on the south by Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire; and on the west by Worcestershire and the West Midlands. The surface is not very flat, though the highest point, Ebrington Hill, is only 260 m/853 ft. |
Ecclesiastical buildings The 15th-century Beauchamp Chapel of St Mary's church, Warwick, is noteworthy, and there are the remains of a 12th-century Cistercian monastery at Coombe Abbey, and of other religious buildings at Kenilworth (12th century), Maxstoke (14th century), Merevale (12th century), Stoneleigh (12th century), and Wroxall (14th century). |
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