Rugby, Warwickshire

Rugby is a market town in Warwickshire, England, close to the River Avon. The town has a population of 70,628 (2011 census[1]) making it the second-largest town in the county. The town is the main settlement within the larger Borough of Rugby which has a population of 100,500 (2011 census).

Rugby

Rugby Market Place, looking west from Church Street
Rugby
Location within Warwickshire
Population70,628 (2011 Census)
DemonymRugbeian
OS grid referenceSP5075
District
  • Rugby
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townRUGBY
Postcode districtCV21, CV22, CV23
Dialling code01788
PoliceWarwickshire
FireWarwickshire
AmbulanceWest Midlands
UK Parliament

Rugby is on the eastern edge of Warwickshire, near the borders of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. It is 83 miles (134 km) north of London, 30 miles (48 km) east-southeast of Birmingham and 11 miles (18 km) east of Coventry.

Rugby School, an independent school situated in the town, is the birthplace of Rugby football.[2]

History
Main article: History of Rugby, Warwickshire

Early Iron Age settlement existed in the Rugby area: The River Avon formed a natural barrier between the Dobunni and Corieltauvi tribes, and it is likely that defended frontier settlements were set up on each side of the Avon valley. Rugby's position on a hill overlooking the Avon, made it an ideal location for a defended Dobunni watch settlement. During the Roman period the Roman town of Tripontium was established on the Watling Street Roman road around 3.4 miles (5.5 km) north-east of what is now Rugby, this was later abandoned when the Romans left Britain.[3]

The small settlement at Rugby was taken over by the Anglo-Saxons around 560 AD, and it was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Rocheberie; a popular theory is that this was a phonetic translation of the Old English name Hrocaberg meaning 'Hroca's hill fortification'; Hroca being an Anglo-Saxon man's name pronounced with a silent 'H', and berg being a name for a hill fortification, with the 'g' being pronounced as an 'ee' sound. By the 13th century the name of the town was commonly spelt as Rokeby before gradually evolving into the modern form.[3] In 1140 the first mention was made of St Andrew's Church which was originally a chapel of the mother church at Clifton-upon-Dunsmore, until Rugby was established as a parish in its own right in 1221. Rugby obtained a charter to hold a market in 1255, and soon developed into a small country market town.[4]

In the 12th century Rugby was mentioned as having a castle. However the 'castle' was probably little more than a fortified manor house. In any event the 'castle' was short lived. It was probably constructed early in the reign of King Stephen (1135–1154) during the period known as The Anarchy, and demolished in around 1157 on the orders of King Henry II. According to one theory, the stones from the castle were later used to construct the west tower of St Andrew's Church, which bears strong resemblance to a castle, and was probably intended for use in a defensive as well as a religious role.[3][5]

Rugby School was founded in 1567 with money left in the will of Lawrence Sheriff, a locally born man, who moved to London and became grocer to Queen Elizabeth I. Rugby School was originally intended as a school for local boys, but by the 18th century it had acquired a national reputation and gradually became a mostly fee-paying private school, with most of its pupils coming from outside Rugby. The Lawrence Sheriff School was eventually founded in 1878 to carry on Sheriff's original intentions.[6][4]

Rugby High Street in 1830

During the English Civil War, King Charles I passed through Rugby in 1642 on his way to Nottingham, and 120 Cavalier Horse Troops reportedly stayed at the town, however the townsfolk were sympathetic to the Parliamentarian cause, and they were disarmed by the Cavalier soldiers. Later, in 1645, Rugby was strongly Parliamentarian, and Oliver Cromwell and two regiments of Roundhead soldiers stayed at Rugby in April that year, two months before the Battle of Naseby, some 12 miles (19 km) to the east, in nearby Northamptonshire.[3][4]

The growth of Rugby was slow, due in part to the nearby markets at Dunchurch and Hillmorton which were better positioned in terms of road traffic. In 1663 Rugby was recorded as containing 160 houses with a population of around 650. By 1730 this had increased to 183 houses, with a population of around 900. Rugby's importance and population increased more rapidly during the late 18th and early 19th century due to the growing national reputation of Rugby School, which had moved from its original location at a (now long vanished) schoolhouse north of St Andrew's Church, to its present location south of the town centre by 1750. By the time of the first national census in 1801, Rugby had a population of 1,487 with 278 houses. By 1831 this had increased further to 2,501 in 415 houses. This growth was driven by parents who wished to send their boys to Rugby School, but were unable to afford the boarding fees and so took up residence in Rugby.[7][8][3]

Map of Rugby published in 1885

Rugby's growth was substantially accelerated by the coming of the railways, as its position made it an ideal meeting place for various railway lines, by the middle of the 19th century, the railway junction at Rugby had become one of the most important in the country: In 1838 one of the earliest inter-city railway lines, the London and Birmingham Railway was constructed around the town, which in 1840 made a junction with the Midland Counties Railway at Rugby. By the 1850s there were five railway lines meeting at Rugby, with more than sixty trains a day passing through Rugby railway station.[7] The railways had a profound effect on the town, as the influx of railway workers and their families rapidly expanded the population.[4] Rugby's population grew to nearly 8,000 by 1861.[8] reaching nearly 17,000 by 1901.[9]

In the later half of the 19th century, Rugby also developed some local industries: Large-scale cement production began in the town in 1862 when the Rugby Lias Lime & Cement Company Ltd was founded to take advantage of the locally available deposits of Blue Lias limestone.[10][3] A factory producing corsets was opened in 1882, this survived until 1992, by which time it was making swimwear.[4] In the 1890s and 1900s heavy engineering industries began to set up in Rugby, causing the town to rapidly grow into a major industrial centre: Willans and Robinson were the first engineering firm to arrive in 1897,[11] building steam engines to drive electrical generators, they were followed by British Thomson-Houston in 1902, who manufactured electrical motors and generators. Both firms started producing turbines in 1904, and were in competition until both were united as part of GEC in 1969.[12] Rugby expanded rapidly in the early decades of the 20th century as workers moved in. By the 1940s, the population of Rugby had grown to over 40,000, and then to over 50,000 by the 1960s.[9]

A local board of health was established in Rugby in 1848, to provide the town with necessary infrastructure for its growth, such as paved roads, street lighting, clean drinking water and sewerage, this was converted into an urban district council in 1894. Rugby's status was upgraded to that of a municipal borough in 1932, and its boundaries were expanded to incorporate the formerly separate villages of Bilton, Hillmorton, Brownsover and Newbold-on-Avon which have become suburbs of the town.[8][13] In 1974 the municipal borough was merged with the Rugby Rural District to form the present Borough of Rugby.[14]

In the postwar years, Rugby became well served by the motorway network, with the M1 and M6 merging close to the town.[12]

Fame
Rugby School.

Rugby is most famous for the invention of rugby football, which is played throughout the world. The invention of the game is credited to William Webb Ellis a Rugby School pupil, who according to legend, broke the existing rules of football by picking up the ball and running with it at match played in 1823. Although there is little evidence to support this story, the school is credited with codifying and popularising the sport. In 1845, three Rugby School pupils produced the first written rules of the "Rugby style of game".[2]

Rugby School is one of England's oldest and most prestigious public schools, and was the setting of Thomas Hughes's semi-autobiographical masterpiece Tom Brown's Schooldays published in 1857.[2] A substantial part of the 2004 dramatisation of the novel, starring Stephen Fry, was filmed on location at Rugby School. Hughes later set up a colony in America for the younger sons of the English gentry, who could not inherit under the laws of primogeniture, naming the town Rugby. The town of Rugby, Tennessee still exists.

Rugby is a birthplace of the jet engine. In April 1937 Frank Whittle built and tested the world's first prototype jet engine at the British Thomson-Houston (BTH) works in Rugby, and during 1936–41 based himself at Brownsover Hall on the outskirts, where he designed and developed early prototype engines. Much of his work was carried out at nearby Lutterworth. Whittle is commemorated in Rugby by a modern sculpture near the town hall dating from 2005, made by Stephen Broadbent.[15][2][16]

Holography was invented in Rugby in 1947, by the Hungarian born inventor Dennis Gabor, also while working at BTH. For this he later received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971.[17]

In the 19th century, Rugby became famous for its once important railway junction which was the setting for Charles Dickens's story Mugby Junction.

Rugby today

The modern town of Rugby is an amalgamation of the original town with the former villages of Bilton, Hillmorton, Brownsover and Newbold-on-Avon which were incorporated into Rugby in 1932 when the town became a borough,[8][13] all except Brownsover still have their former village centres. Rugby also includes the areas of New Bilton, Overslade, Hillside and the partially constructed Houlton housing development. The spread of Rugby has nearly reached the villages of Clifton-upon-Dunsmore, Cawston, Dunchurch and Long Lawford.

Regent Street and the tower of St Andrew's Church

Town centre

The town centre is mostly Victorian and early 20th century, however a few much older buildings survive, along with some more modern developments. Rugby was described by Nikolaus Pevsner as 'Butterfieldtown'[18] due to the number of buildings designed by William Butterfield in the 19th century, including much of Rugby School and the extension of St Andrew's Church.

The main shopping area in Rugby is in the streets around the Clock Tower, two of which – High Street and Sheep Street – were pedestrianised in the 1980s.[4] Until the 19th century, Rugby's urban area consisted of only Market Place, High Street, Sheep Street, Church Street, North Street and what is now Lawrence Sheriff Street. These centred on what is now the Clock Tower, which was built in 1887 on the site of an ancient cross. These streets still form the core of the town centre. In the Victorian and Edwardian eras several more shopping streets were added in order to cater for the growing town, including Albert Street and Regent Street, the latter of which was built in 1905, and was intended to be Rugby's main shopping street, although it never achieved this goal.[3][19] The town centre has an indoor shopping centre called Rugby Central Shopping Centre which opened in 1979 (previously named The Clock Tower shopping centre).[4] A street market is held in the town centre several days a week. In recent years several out-of-town retail centres have opened and expanded to the north of the town, including: Elliots Field Retail Park, Junction 1 Retail Park and Technology Drive.

Geography
Map of Rugby

Most of Rugby sits around 400 feet (120 m) above sea level on an irregular shaped plateau which is situated between the valleys of the River Avon and Swift to the north, and the Rains Brook and River Leam to the south.[20] The areas of Brownsover and Newbold are to the north of the Avon valley.

The county boundary between Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire to the east of Rugby is defined by the A5 road (the former Watling Street) around 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Rugby town centre. The three counties meet at Dow Bridge; the point where the A5 road crosses the River Avon, forming a tripoint. To the south-east of Rugby the county boundary with Northamptonshire is defined by the Rains Brook.[21] Rugby is the easternmost town within Warwickshire (and the entire West Midlands region)

Suburbs and districts

Suburbs and districts of Rugby include:

Adjacent settlements

Places adjoining or adjacent to Rugby, but not part of the town itself:

Nearby places

Demographics

At the 2011 census, there were 70,628 residents in Rugby in 30,901 households, and the median age of Rugby residents was 39.[22]

In terms of ethnicity:[22]

  • 89% of Rugby residents were White (Comprising 81% White British, 6.5% Other White, 1.1% Irish and 0.1% Gypsy/Irish Traveller).
  • 5.8% were Asian (Comprising 3.6% Indian, 0.8% Pakistani, 0.2% Bangladeshi 0.5% Chinese and 0.8% from another Asian background)
  • 2.5% were Black (Comprising 1.2% African, 1.0% Caribbean and 0.3% other Black)
  • 2.4% were Mixed.
  • 0.1% were Arab and 0.2% were from another ethnic group.

In terms of religion, 62% of Rugby residents identified as Christian, 25.6% said they had no religion, 6.7% did not state any religion, 2.6% were Hindu, 1.6% were Muslim, 0.7% were Sikh, 0.3% were Buddhists, 0.1% were Jewish and 0.3% were from another religion.[22]

Politics and governance

National representation
Main article: Rugby (UK Parliament constituency)

From 1885 until 1983 Rugby was a constituency in itself, a status it regained in 2010. Rugby historically has been one of the Midlands' most marginal seats. From 1885 until 1924 Rugby was a marginal seat which changed hands between the Conservative and Liberal parties. From 1924 until 1942, the prominent Conservative David Margesson was Rugby's MP, his resignation triggered the 1942 Rugby by-election which was won by an independent trade unionist William Brown, who retained the seat until losing it to James Johnson of the Labour Party in 1950. From 1950 until 1983 Rugby was a Labour-Conservative marginal, with the Labour Party holding it for the majority of that period.[23]

In 1983 Rugby was joined with Kenilworth to become part of the parliamentary constituency of Rugby and Kenilworth. Between 1983 and 1997 Jim Pawsey was the Conservative Member of Parliament, losing in 1997 to Labour's Andy King. At the 2005 general election Jeremy Wright regained the seat for the Conservatives.[23]

Following the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for England, Warwickshire was allocated a sixth parliamentary seat. In the 2010 general election, the existing Rugby and Kenilworth constituency was abolished and split in two. A new Rugby constituency was created, and a new constituency of Kenilworth and Southam formed to the south of Rugby, and as a result the town regained its pre-1983 status of returning its own member of parliament, albeit with the addition of the Bulkington Ward from Nuneaton. Jeremy Wright chose to stand for Kenilworth and Southam in the 2010 general election and was successful. Mark Pawsey, son of former Rugby MP Jim Pawsey, was elected for Rugby in 2010.[23]

Local government
Rugby Town Hall – The headquarters of Rugby Borough Council

Rugby is administered by two local authorities: Rugby Borough Council which covers Rugby and its surrounding countryside, and Warwickshire County Council. The two authorities are responsible for different aspects of local government. Rugby is an unparished area and so does not have its own town council.

The Borough of Rugby was created in its current form in 1974, with the first elections held in 1973, since then, Rugby Borough Council has spent the majority of its time under no overall control, but since 2018 it has been controlled by the Conservative Party (see Rugby Borough Council elections)

Rugby Town Hall (pictured) was built between 1959 and 1961 by J.C. Prestwich & Sons,[24] and is beside Caldecott Park. The entrance portico is inscribed with the borough motto "Floreat Rugbeia", Latin for "May Rugby Flourish".[25] Two previous town halls existed on High Street: The first one was built in 1857, and was mostly destroyed by a fire in 1921, being replaced by a building which was until 2009 a Woolworths shop. The second one dated from 1895 and was for many years used as a Marks and Spencer shop.[26]

Culture and recreation

The largest general purpose venue in Rugby is the Benn Hall which opened in 1961 as part of the town hall complex,[27] Rugby has two theatres, a professional theatre the Macready Theatre, and the amateur Rugby Theatre, both in the town centre.[28] A nine screen cinema run by Cineworld is located at a retail park north of the town centre.[29]

The Rugby Art Gallery, Museum & Library

The Rugby Art Gallery, Museum & Library which opened in 2000, hosts various temporary art exhibitions, the main collection which is not on permanent display is the nationally renown "Rugby Collection of 20th century and Contemporary British Art" which includes 170 artworks by artists such as L. S. Lowry, Stanley Spencer, Paula Rego and Graham Sutherland.[30] The museum hosts Roman artefacts excavated from the nearby Romano-British town of Tripontium, as well as an exhibition of the social history of Rugby. The building also houses the World Rugby Hall of Fame as well as the town's library.[31]

The Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum also in the town centre also hosts rugby memorabilia.

Since 2011 Rugby has held the annual Rugby Festival of Culture, which lasts for two or three weeks in June and July, and includes a wide-ranging program of music, theatre, arts and crafts and comedy.[32][33]

The poet Rupert Brooke was born and raised in Rugby, and he is commemorated in the town by a statue in Regent Place.[34]

In the 1980s the influential rock band Spacemen 3 was formed in Rugby by the local musicians Jason Pierce and Pete Kember. Following its demise in 1991, both musicians went on to form successful subsequent projects; Pierce formed the critically acclaimed band Spiritualized and Kember continued performing under the names Sonic Boom/Spectrum.[35] Other notable musical acts to emerge from Rugby include the 1970s pop band Jigsaw which was formed by musicians from Rugby and Coventry,[36] and the 2000s singer-songwriter James Morrison.

There are two large urban parks in the town centre, one is Caldecott Park alongside the town hall,[37] and on the edge of the town centre is the Whitehall Recreation Ground.[38]

Rugby has an indoor leisure centre, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Centre which opened in 2013, replacing the older Ken Marriott Leisure Centre, it is run by GLL a charitable social enterprise on behalf of the local council.[39]

Sport

Economy

For most of the 20th Century manufacturing was the largest employer in Rugby. Since the 1990s manufacturing employment has gone into decline, and service industries are now the largest source of employment.[40] Rugby remains an engineering centre and has a long history of producing gas and steam turbines at the GEC and at the AEI. The AEI was earlier British Thomson-Houston or BTH. They used to dominate employment in the town. They are now amalgamated to form Alstom. Engineering in Rugby is still the most important sector.

Further afield, within the Rugby borough is the Rolls-Royce engineering works near Ansty. This is nearer to Coventry than Rugby, but is a major employer to the Rugby population.

Rugby Cement works

Another major industry in Rugby is cement making; The Rugby Cement company, was founded in the 1860s, making cement from the local Jurassic Blue Lias limestone at New Bilton. In the 1990s the Rugby Cement works was rebuilt and substantially enlarged, and in 2000 other Rugby Cement plants at Southam and Rochester were closed, with all production moved to the Rugby plant,[41] which has been described as one of the most modern cement plants in the world. Rugby Cement was taken over in 2000 and is now owned by the Mexican firm Cemex, who moved their UK headquarters to Rugby in 2018.[42].

Since the 1980s several large industrial estates have been built to the north, and warehousing, distribution and light industry have become major employers. This is due to the town's close proximity to the M6 motorway (Junction 1) and M1 (Junction 19), at the heart of the UK's motorway network.[3] In 2017 nearly half of Warwickshire's businesses in the ‘Transport and storage’ sector were in Rugby.[43] In 2017 Hermes opened its 'Midlands Super Hub' parcel delivery depot at the Rugby Gateway development to the north of the town, which is the largest of its type in the UK.[44] To the east of Rugby is the large Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT), which opened in the 1990s; although this is across the county border in Northamptonshire, it is closest to Rugby.

Tourism is also important to the town's economy, especially related to Rugby football.[45]

In 2017 the average annual workplace wage in the Rugby borough was £29,059; above the Warwickshire (£28,513) and UK (£28,296) averages.[43]

One of the last links to Rugby's rural past was the cattle market held near the railway station, and earlier in the "Market Place" in the old centre of Rugby since medieval times. The market near the railway station was closed in late 2008 and the site has been redeveloped into housing, a hotel and a Tesco store as part of a wider scheme of work in the station area.

Landmarks
Rugby Radio Station (now demolished)

One of the most notable landmarks around Rugby was, until August 2007, the Rugby Radio Station, a large radio transmitting station just to the east of the town. The station was opened in 1926, at its height in the 1950s it was the largest radio transmitting station in the world, with a total of 57 radio transmitters, covering an area of 1600 acres. Traffic slowly dwindled from the 1980s onwards, and the site was closed between 2003 and 2007.[46] Several of the masts were decommissioned and demolished by explosives in 2004, although a few, including four of the biggest masts remained until 2007. (Firing the explosive charges was delayed by rabbits gnawing the wires).[47] The remaining four 'tall' masts were demolished on the afternoon of 2 August 2007 with no prior publicity. The site is now being developed as a new housing development known as Houlton

Rugby Cement works, to the west of the town, can be seen for many miles. Standing at just 115 metres high, the landmark is not a popular one— in 2005 it came in the top ten of a poll of buildings people would like to see demolished on the Channel 4 television series Demolition.[48] In October 2006, the owners of the Rugby Cement works, Cemex, were fined £400,000 for excessive pollution after a court case brought by the Environment Agency.[49]

William Webb Ellis' statue

The town has statues of three famous locals: Rupert Brooke, Thomas Hughes and William Webb Ellis. The Rupert Brooke statue is situated at the forked junction of Regent Street on the green and commemorates his contribution to poetry. Thomas Hughes' statue stands in the gardens of the Temple Reading Rooms (the central library of Rugby school) on Barby Road. Since England won the Rugby World Cup in 2003, the William Webb Ellis statue outside Rugby School is one of the most visited parts of the town.

St Andrew's Church

St Andrew's Church, in the town centre, is Rugby's original Church of England parish church. A church has stood on the site since 1140. The oldest surviving part of the church is the 22 metre high west tower which bears strong resemblance to a castle turret, the west tower was possibly built during the reign of Henry III (1216–1272) to serve a defensive as well as religious role, and is Rugby's oldest building. The church has other artefacts of medieval Rugby including the 13th-century parish chest, and a medieval font. The church was extensively re-built and expanded in the 19th century, designed by William Butterfield. The expanded church included a new east tower, added in 1895 which has a spire 196 feet (60 m) high.[3] The church is Grade II* listed.[50] Very unusually, both of the church towers have ringable bells, the main peal of bells (all cast in 1896 by Mears & Stainbank, London) being located in the eastern tower, and the old peal (all cast in 1711 by Joseph Smith of Edgbaston) located in the western tower.[51]

St Marie's Church

Rugby's main Roman Catholic church is St Marie's on Dunchurch Road. It is one of the town's most well-known landmarks as it is quite dominant on the skyline. The church was first opened in 1847, designed by Pugin in the Gothic revival style, it was enlarged in 1864, and in 1872 the current tall and slender spire was added, which is nearly 200 feet (61 metres) tall.[3][4] The church is also Grade II* listed.[52]

Rugby School, New Quad Buildings and War Memorial Chapel.

The buildings of Rugby School are major landmarks mostly dating from the 18th and 19th century with some early 20th Century additions. Several individual buildings of the School are Grade II* listed including the Old and New Quad buildings, dating from 1748 and 1867–85 respectively, the School House of 1813, and the War Memorial chapel dating from 1922.[53][54][55][56]

Places of interest

Places of interest in the town include:

  • The Rugby School Museum, which has audio-visual displays about the history of Rugby School and of the town.
  • The combined art gallery and museum. The art gallery contains a nationally recognised collection of contemporary art. The museum contains, amongst other things, Roman artefacts dug up from the nearby Roman settlement of Tripontium. The facility became the physical home of the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2016.[57]
  • The Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum, where traditional rugby balls are handmade. It contains much rugby football memorabilia.
  • The Benn Hall, a conference, seminar, exhibition and party venue.
  • Newbold Quarry Park, nature reserve
  • Swift Valley Nature Reserve

Places of interest around Rugby include:

Transport

Road

Rugby is near several major trunk routes including the M6, M1 and M45 motorways, and the A5, A14 and A45 roads. Other less important main roads include the A426 road, the A428 road and the Rugby Western Relief Road, linking the A45 with the Leicester Road, that connects with the Motorway at Junction 1 of the M6.

In 2010 a short local bypass, the first part of the Rugby Western Relief Road, was opened, running from the A428 (Lawford Road) along the edge of the built-up area to the A4071 (road from Rugby through Bilton and Cawston) a little west of Cawston, to take through heavy traffic off suburban housing roads such as Addison Road. On 10 September 2010, the final part of Rugby's Western Relief Road was opened. The road runs from Potsford Dam near Cawston, through the Lawford Road and ending at Newbold Road, near the Avon Valley School. The initial estimated cost was projected at £36.6 million, while the final figure is in excess of £60 million.[59]

Bus

Buses run to Coventry, Southam, Leamington Spa, Daventry, Leicester and Northampton as well as serving the major estates of the town on a regular basis. Stagecoach in Warwickshire have a depot in the town.

Railways
Rugby railway station

Rugby railway station is served by the West Coast Main Line, and has frequent regular services to London Euston, Birmingham New Street, Stafford and Crewe. There are also some albeit very infrequent services between Rugby and Glasgow Central, the North West of England, Shrewsbury Chester and Holyhead.

Rugby has had a railway station since 1838, when the London and Birmingham Railway was opened, though the present station dates from 1885. Rugby station used to be served by lines which have now been closed, including lines to Leicester. Leamington Spa, and Peterborough. These were closed in the 1960s as part of the Beeching cuts.[60]

Between 1899 and 1969, Rugby had a second station; Rugby Central station on the former Great Central Main Line which had services to London Marylebone to the south and Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield to the north. The station and line were closed in the 1960s as part of the Beeching cuts.[60]

British Railways' steam locomotive testing centre was in Rugby.[60]

Warwickshire County Council has proposed Rugby Parkway station be built on the Northampton Loop Line, south-east of the existing station, serving the Hillmorton area of the town. The station is to be built in between the current edge of town and DIRFT to accommodate for the future expansion of the town where 6,200 homes are planned to be built over a 15 to 20-year period. No date however has been given for the opening of this station.[61]

Air

There are direct rail links to the nearest major airport Birmingham Airport. The smaller Coventry Airport is nearby.

Canal

The Oxford Canal meanders through the borough of Rugby. There are over 1000 moorings along the route in marinas, online moorings and farm moorings, as well as numerous canal businesses. The route was completed in 1790 but was shortened by approx 14 miles in the 1800s. Several arms of the canal, closed during the 1800s, have been reopened for moorings and canal businesses.

Education
See also: List of schools in Warwickshire

Primary
State schools
  • Abbots Farm Junior School
  • Abbots Farm Infant School
  • Bawnmore Infant School
  • Bilton Infant School
  • Bilton CE Junior School
  • Boughton Leigh Infant
  • Boughton Leigh Junior
  • Brownsover Community Infant School
  • Cawston Grange Primary School
  • Eastlands Primary School
  • English Martyrs Catholic Primary School
  • Henry Hinde Infant School
  • Henry Hinde Junior School
  • Hillmorton Primary School
  • Northlands Primary School
  • Oakfield Primary Academy
  • Paddox Primary School
  • Riverside Academy
  • Rokeby Infant School
  • Rokeby Junior School
  • Rugby Free Primary School
  • St Andrew's Benn CE Primary School
  • St Maries RC Infant School
  • St Maries RC Junior School
  • St Matthews Bloxham CE Primary School
Independent

Secondary
Comprehensive Schools
Grammar schools
Independent schools

Further education
  • Rugby College – which is a part of the Warwickshire College Group.

Former schools and colleges

Notable residents
See also: List of Old Rugbeians

Born in Rugby

Lived or lives in Rugby

Local media

Radio

The local radio stations are:

Written media

The main local newspapers are:

Television news

The Rugby area is covered on regional TV News by:

Twin towns
See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in the United Kingdom

Rugby is twinned with:[4]

gollark: Stuff like my password manager information can't practically be stored elsewhere.
gollark: I have backups (ish). I'm concerned about unauthorized access to it more than losing it.
gollark: I do, in fact, have somewhat important things on my computer.
gollark: I want hardware and software which is less likely to randomly leak information or have security flaws. It's *really* bad for cloud providers.
gollark: And more bizarre artificial segmentation with overclocking and RAM speeds.

See also

References
  1. "Rugby (Warwickshire)". Rugby on City Population. Retrieved 8 April 2014.
  2. "Six ways the town of Rugby helped change the world". BBC. Retrieved 11 March 2019
  3. Osbourne, Andy, Rawlins, Eddy (1988). Rugby Growth Of A Town.
  4. "Rugby history timeline". Rugby Local History Research Group. Archived from the original on 20 September 2016. Retrieved 30 August 2016.
  5. Wait, Rev W.O. (1893). "Rugby:past and present, with an historical account of neighbouring parishes". pp. 38–47.
  6. "SHERIFF, Lawrence". Rugby Local History Group. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  7. Rugby, Further Aspects Of The Past (1977) Rugby Local History Group
  8. "THE BOROUGH OF RUGBY". British History Online. Archived from the original on 8 March 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2018.
  9. "Administrative unit Rugby MB/UD Local Government District". Vision of Britain. Archived from the original on 8 March 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2018.
  10. "Rugby Portland Cement Company Ltd". Cement Kilns. Archived from the original on 26 October 2018. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
  11. "THE WILLANS WORKS". Our Warwickshire. Archived from the original on 8 March 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2018.
  12. "Industrial Town – From 1836 to now". Rugby Local History Group. Archived from the original on 8 March 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2018.
  13. visionofbritain.org Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  14. "Timeline History of Rugby". VisitorUK. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  15. "SIR FRANK WHITTLE, INVENTOR OF THE JET ENGINE". Our Warwickshire. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  16. "Winning ways to hail jet pioneer". CoventryTelegraph. 24 March 2005. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  17. "DENNIS GABOR, RUGBY NOBEL LAUREATE". Our Warwickshire. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  18. Allen, Geoff, (2000) Warwickshire Towns & Villages, ISBN 1-85058-642-X
  19. "Rugby roads J–Y". Rugby Local History Research Group. Retrieved 23 August 2019.
  20. Wait, Rev W.O. (1893). "Rugby:past and present, with an historical account of neighbouring parishes". p. 325.
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Further reading
  • Rugby, Aspects of the Past. Rugby Local History Group.
  • Timmins, E.W. (1990). Rugby: A Pictorial History. ISBN 0-85033-700-3.
  • Elliot, Peter H (1985). Rugby's Railway Heritage. ISBN 0-907917-06-2.
  • Rawlins, Eddy; Osborne, Andy (1988). Rugby Growth Of A Town. ISBN 0-907917-06-2.

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