Towns and villages

Warwickshire is a captivating mix of the famous and the yet-to-be-discovered, in beautiful countryside threaded by rivers and canals. A county where a Roman market town sits a short drive from a Regency spa, where a medieval castle overlooks a Georgian high street, and where the birthplace of the world's most celebrated playwright is twenty minutes from the birthplace of the world's most popular sport.

Warwickshire is a quintessentially English county, home to beautiful countryside dotted with historic towns and villages. A destination boasting thousands of years of history and heritage, intriguing art and culture, delicious food and drink, endless family fun and, of course, world-famous theatre. 

It is also far more than headlines suggest. Look beyond Stratford and Warwick and you find a county that rewards curiosity at every turn - in the literary back streets of Nuneaton, the Saxon abbey precincts of Polesworth, the Elizabethan gardens of Kenilworth, the Regency colonnades of Leamington, and the ancient droving streets of Shipston-on-Stour.

Whether visitor or resident, Warwickshire has so much to offer.

Beyond the market towns, Warwickshire's villages are among its greatest pleasures - and among its best-kept secrets. From the thatched cottages of Welford-on-Avon and the honey-coloured stone of Long Compton on the Cotswold edge, to the canal-side charm of Lowsonford and the ancient tranquillity of Hampton Lucy beside the River Avon, the county's smaller villages carry their history lightly and wear it well. Many have literary connections that run deep: Snitterfield, just north of Stratford, was home to Shakespeare's father's family; Nuneaton's surrounding villages are woven into the fabric of George Eliot's novels; and the villages around Polesworth were frequented by the Elizabethan poets of the famous literary circle that bore the village's name. Walk into almost any Warwickshire village churchyard and the stones will tell a story stretching back centuries.

The food and drink on offer across the county's villages has never been better. A new generation of village pubs - many of them multi-award-winning - serves food sourced from the farms and smallholdings visible from their windows, and the tradition of the well-kept village inn with an open fire and a good cellar is alive and very well in Warwickshire. 

Farmers' markets, farm shops, vineyards and artisan producers have taken root across the county, and the villages of south Warwickshire in particular - sitting at the northern edge of the Cotswolds, where the limestone soil and gentle climate favour growing - have become a quiet destination in their own right for those who take food and drink seriously. Add a pretty village green, a medieval church and a well-waymarked footpath into open countryside, and the case for a village-centred Warwickshire visit makes itself very easy indeed.

Warwickshire is a captivating mix of the famous and the yet-to-be-discovered. It is a county where Saxon abbeys sit alongside Georgian terraces, where Roman archaeology lies under medieval market places, where Victorian novelists and Elizabethan poets lived and worked in the same landscapes that walkers cross today. 

Come for Shakespeare. Come for the castles. Come for the canal, the countryside, the cream tea in the beamed Great Hall. But most of all, come with enough time to wander - because Warwickshire's greatest pleasures have a habit of appearing when you are not specifically looking for them: down a side street in Warwick, along the towpath outside Polesworth, on the high lane above Shipston with the Cotswolds laid out below and all of south Warwickshire stretching away behind you.

Whether you are a family craving some outdoor adventures or a couple looking for a restorative weekend away, Warwickshire is waiting for you.