Author's history book includes 'eyebrow raising' stories about Leamington, Warwick and Kenilworth

Historian Andrew Beardmore has written and published Echoes of Historic Warwickshire.

The first half of the book, Historic Warwickshire, is dedicated to a conventional history of the county from its territory in prehistoric times all the way up to the 21st Century.

The second half of the book, Offbeat Warwickshire, is about more obscure stories from around the county.

This includes the story of how St Nicholas’ church got a ‘scar’ on either side of the east-facing window clearly showing where the original nave

abutted the tower before it was lowered in 1580.

Meanwhile, inside the church there is a pig of lead in the shape of a boat – which was unearthed from the abbey ruins in 1888.

It is likely that this was lead taken from the abbey roof in the 16th century, which was then stripped away, melted down and deliberately hidden from Henry VIII’s superintendents.

In Ashow near Kenilworth in 1819, 21-year-old servant Ann Heytrey made a full confession to the bloody murder of her mistress.

Throughout her trial, she remained calm and composed.

Her sole explanation was that she had no motive but killed her mistress because the thought happened to enter her head and she felt that she must do it.

It was said at the time that she was “moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil”.

Nearby Stoneleigh is allegedly home to the ghost of a mad cyclist.

It is said that he was killed there in the 1880s.

In 1815, Admiral Sir George Cockburn of Leamington was the officer chosen to escort the defeated Napoleon Bonaparte into exile on St Helena in the South Atlantic.

During the voyage, Napoleon opened his heart to the likeable Cockburn.

Only a village with a population of around 500 in 1801, Leamington expanded dramatically in the 1830s when it became popular as a spa resort, and by the mid-19 th century, its population had already increased thirtyfold to around 15,000.

Leamington had major competition in the 19th Century to land the mantle of number one spa town in Warwickshire, from Bishopton.

Apparently Bishopton had a better-quality of spa water but Leamington’s marketing proved to be superior.

The book also tells the legendary tale of Guy of Warwick, who supposedly lived in the late 10th Century and, as a knight deseperate to prove his worth to the Earl of Warwick’s daughter Lady Phelice, who he was in love with, travelled all over England, Europe and the Holy Land battling Turks and Saracens as well as fantastic monsters such as dragons, giants, great boars and the fearsome Dun Cow of Dunsmore Heath.

In 1312, King Edward II’s favourite Piers Gaveston was sentenced to death by beheading by Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and other barons who bore a grudge against him.

But Beauchamp, who had been mockingly dubbed “The Black Hound of Arden” by Gaveston, and the other barons all also met brutal deaths within a handful of years with Beauchamp being poisned.

To find out more about Echoes of Historic Warwickshire andybeardmore.com/echoes-of-historic-warwickshire