Warwickshire history

Warwickshire sits at the geographical heart of England, and its history runs deep. This is the county where prehistoric peoples raised standing stones that still carry their legends, where the Romans built the roads that still cross the landscape, where a Saxon queen founded the town that gave the county its name, where the instigator of the most audacious assassination attempt in English history met co-conspirators and where, in a half-timbered house on a market town street in 1564, the greatest playwright who ever lived was born.

The story runs from Neolithic burial chambers to Norman castles, from the longest medieval siege in English history to the first pitched battle of the Civil War, from the dissolution of monasteries that still stand in romantic ruin to the Victorian era that gave the world George Eliot, Capability Brown's parkland and the spa waters of Royal Leamington. It runs through country houses where priests hid beneath kitchen floors to Second World War runways. 

Read about our history, visit our museums, follow our trails and take part in heritage events across our county.