Watch this video with commentary based on a talk given by Richard Taulbut to Lillington Local History Society in January 2020 and also for Leamington History Day in September 2020 to mark the one thousandth anniversary of the Saxon doorway in Lillington church. This video is also available on YouTube

Signs Appeal Success

Working with Royal Leamington Spa Town Council, Lillington Local History Society's campaign was successful in July 2020, and 'Welcome to Lillington' and 'Lillington' highway signs can now be seen on five key entry routes into Lillington.

Lillington is signposted from every direction, but how could visitors know when they had arrived? Entry signage now helps visitors and gives a valued sense of recognition and identity for residents of our community.

Official permission from Warwickshire County Council was obtained, and the Town Council budgetted £1500 towards the total cost of the project, leaving the last £850 to be raised by LLHS.

Local residents have been very generous, raising over £530 including Gift Aid. Our Lillington community has been recognised in a visible way for the first time.

The original handwritten Inspectors’ reports on Lillington School for the period 1881-1911 are now in the care of LLHS.

Reports were made annually by government inspectors [HMI] and provide a unique and objective insight into the school’s performance and development. The reports were sent to the Vicar as Chairman of the School Managers. They were not available to parents.

Important features include

• The growing number of pupils as Lillington increases in size at the end of the Victorian period
• Inspectors’ assessments of the quality of teaching and learning
• Gender differences in the curriculum: Cottage gardening for boys, laundry and dairy work for girls
• The statistical data relating to standards and attendance used to calculate the size of the school’s financial grant for the following year
• Recommended changes and improvements to the building

A detailed analysis of each report has been prepared by Larry Connor. Please click here to read the full document.

Larry Connor & Chris Rhodes

Birth of a Spa Town

Leamington’s transformation from a small village to a thriving spa town in the late 18th and early 19th centuries is retold in this video produced by Leamington History Group.

Old Photos of Leamington from the Coventry Evening Telegraph

Lillington in Lockdown 2020

In years to come, historians will have all the official documents they need to write the formal history of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is equally important to record how ordinary people coped, how their lives changed, what they endured or came to appreciate even more than before.

Chris Rhodes put together a written record of the impact on Lillington called Lillington in Lockdown, and some extra items in Lockdown Extra.

Remember queuing in the rain outside Quigleys' butchers, how neighbours came together, the empty shops in town, working from home with a schoolroom on the kitchen table, grandchildren missing their friends, the successful mastery of Zoom and much more, the positives and the negatives, it wasn't all doom and gloom, and including many contributions from younger members of our community.

Judy Cooke in this Lockdown Diary records events local and national at the start of 2020 as Covid-19 took hold on our lives.