1967 - The year to Queen came to town to see our engineering prowess, to the delight of thousands of Rugbeians

On May 12, 1967, Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived in the town - on the itinary was a visit to Rugby School, BTH and to open the Queen Elizabeth Gates to The Close in Barby Road.

A contemporaneous report of the royal visit to the BTH works reads: "Some 4,000 people, wives and familes of workpeople, and a group of retired employees, gave Her Majesty an enthusiastic welcome when the royal car came slowly up the works drive."

The royal couple then toured the site, seeing the array of impressive products being built by Rugbeians - including parts for a nuclear reactor, a power station and for nuclear submarine H.M.S Churchill.

Once the tour was over the Queen was presented with bouquet of roses by Ruth Wallis, the five-year-old daughter of the works manager.

A witness to the event wrote: "The occasion will be long remembered by those at Rugby Works, particularly the charm and dignity of the Queen and the evident interest shown by her and the Duke in the people and the products of Rugby Works."

Clearly, the Queen's trademark brightly-coloured clothing made an impression, with one workman saying afterwards: "Amid the drab environs of the works, the Queen looked radiant."

Though this was the Queen's first (and only) official visit to Rugby, the Duke of Edinburgh had been once before when, in 1964 he toured the Lodge factory of Smiths' Spark Plug and Ceramics Division, arriving by the Royal Train at Rugby station.

Rugby has not escaped the attention of royals through the years, with scores of visits formal and informal.Though Queen Victoria never formally visited the town - she did find herself here by mistake in 1847.

Her train stopped to change engines at the station and a large group of residents and school pupils gathered there.Perhaps the most poignant royal visit to our town was King Geroge V's in March 1915.

He stopped on the London Road to inspect an 18,000-strong column of men from the 29th Division as they marched past. The division landed in Gallipoli later that year.After the war a memorial was erected - and it now sits on a roundabout on the A45, near Stretton-on-Dunsmore.In happier times Mary, the Princess Royal, officially opened St Cross's Sun Pavilion in 1932.

Then, in 1961, the Queen Mother (at the time in a wheelchair owing to a broken ankle) officially opened the Town Hall and Benn Hall.

There were many more royal vists through the years.