Welcome to Lillington

Lillington today is home to over ten thousand people, and is sometimes thought to be simply a suburb of Leamington Spa. But it has not always been so.

Until the 1780’s, when two enterprising Leamingtonians began to promote the salty spring water to aristocratic visitors, Leamington was a village not much bigger than Lillington. Still longer ago, DOMESDAY BOOK in 1086 listed sixteen households in Lillington, against Leamington’s eleven.

Before the nineteenth century, agriculture was the chief employment. From the 1840's a brewery and a brickworks, and new streets and avenues were developed close to Leamington and along Lillington Road.

Development accelerated from the 1920's either side of Cubbington Road, and from 1947 with the creation by Leamington Corporation of a new neighbourhood centre around Crown Way and Buckley Road. The Stud Farm estate around Valley Road and Parklands Avenue was developed in the 1970's. South of the Midland Oak, development continued into the 1980's off Heemstede Lane.

Since the 1980's most housing development in Greater Leamington has been south of the town, but this will change with the adoption of the South Warwickshire Local Plan, which envisages 1455 new houses in Lillington south and east of Buckley Road (Site LEA.3) and another 1043 (Site LEA.1) north of Leicester Lane, increasing the number of residential properties in Lillington by around fifty per cent by 2050.

This website is a personal contribution to the appreciation of the past and present of our neighbourhood, with links to the contributions of many others gratefully acknowledged.