DISCOVER WARWICK
Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire in the West Midlands region of England. The town lies upon the River Avon, 18 km (11 miles) south of Coventry and 4 km (2.5 miles) west of Leamington Spa.
Warwick hosts annual festivals ranging from the Spoken Word to Classical and Contemporary Music to a Folk Festival and the Victorian Evening, held in late November or early December. Warwick Chamber of Trade helps to promote the town for visitors, residents and businesses.
The town is also famous for Warwick Castle, the construction of which began in 1068. The town centre is also known for its historic architecture, and contains a mixture of Tudor and 17th-century buildings. In recent years, several high-profile national and international companies have set-up large office complexes in and around Warwick, notably National Grid and IBM.
Warwick is also known for Warwick Racecourse, near the west gate of the medieval town which hosts several televised meets a year. Within the racecourse is a small golfcourse.
 HISTORY OF WARWICK
According to tradition, Warwick was founded on the banks of the River Avon in the year 914 AD, when Ethelfleda, sister of Mercian king Edward the Elder built defences against Danish (Viking) invaders; these were to be the basis of Warwick Castle. The name 'Warwick' means "dwellings by the weir".
In 1016 the Danes invaded Mercia and burned down much of Warwick, including the nunnery (which stood on the site of the present day St Nicholas Church).
Its fortifications led Warwick to become an important administrative centre within the Mercian kingdom. In the early 11th century Anglo-Saxon England was divided into administrative areas known as shires, and the shire administered from Warwick became known as Warwickshire. By the time of Domesday Book, Warwick was a royal borough.
In medieval times, Warwick remained under the control of various Earls of Warwick, mostly of the Beauchamp family, and became a walled town. Today the only remains of the town walls are the east and west gatehouses. The Eastern gatehouse now serves as part of the King's High School, a sister institution to Warwick School. Warwick was not incorporated as a town until 1545.
During the English Civil War the town and castle were garrisoned for Parliament. The garrison, under Sir Edward Peyto, withstanding a two week siege by the Royalists. Later musters from 1644 to 1646 record a garrison of up to 350 men under the command of Colonel Purefoy and Major John Bridges. The middle of the 17th century also saw the founding of Warwick Castle, one of the oldest baptist churches in the world.
In 1694 a great fire destroyed much of the town, and as a result most of the buildings in the town centre are of 17th and 18th century origin, although a number of older medieval buildings survive, especially around the edges of the town centre.
The fire burnt down much of the medieval church of St Mary; both the chancel and the Beauchamp Chapel, however, survived, the latter having been built between 1443 and 1464 according to the wishes of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (who had died in Rouen in 1439). A full size reclining copper gilt effigy of the Earl lies upon his Purbeck marble tomb - a fine piece of medieval metalwork cast in 1459.
Warwick School is an independent school for boys which claims to be the oldest boys' school in England. The actual date of its founding is unknown, although 914 has been quoted in some cases.
For some years the school honoured the fact that King Edward the Confessor (c.1004–1066) chartered it, although there is no direct evidence for this, and King Henry VIII re-founded the school in 1545. Whatever the truth of the matter, there is no doubt that there has been a grammar school in the town of Warwick since before the Norman Conquest, and its successor, the present school, has been on its current site south of the River Avon since 1879.
On 28 March 2007, the Warwick School Under 18s Rugby Union team beat Barnard Castle School 24-23 at Twickenham Stadium, to win the Daily Mail Cup for the first time in the school's history.
The University of Warwick, one of the leading universities in the UK, is somewhat confusingly named after the 'county' of Warwickshire, rather than the town, and is in fact situated several miles north of Warwick on the southern outskirts of Coventry.
TRANSPORTATION
Warwick is near the M40 motorway and the A46 trunk road. The town also has good rail links, with direct services to London, Birmingham and Stratford-upon-Avon provided by Chiltern Railways from Warwick railway station in the town and also from Warwick Parkway, a new out-of-town station opened in 2000 a few miles from the town. In addition, a few peak-hour trains to and from Birmingham are operated by London Midland.
The Grand Union Canal and the River Avon also pass through the town. The restored Saltisford Canal Arm, is close to the town centre, and is a short branch of the Grand Union Canal. The arm is the remains of the original terminus of the Warwick and Birmingham Canal and dates back to 1799. The Saltisford Canal Trust have restored most of the surviving canal, which is now the mooring for colourful narrowboats and a waterside park open to the public. Over 800 visiting narrowboats come by water to Warwick each year and moor on the arm.
MISCELLANEOUS
J. R. R. Tolkien seems to have been very influenced by Warwick (where he was married in the Catholic Church of Saint Mary Immaculate) and by its Mercian connections: Lynn Forest-Hill, in an article in the Times Literary Supplement (TLS 8 July 2005 pp 12-13) argues that two important settlements in Tolkien's work were modelled on Warwick — Edoras closely on the early town, and Minas Tirith more remotely on the Norman; and that aspects of the plot of the The Lord of the Rings are paralleled in the romance known as Guy of Warwick.
Warwick and its historic buildings have featured in a number of television series, including the BBC's drama series Dangerfield, the period dramas Pride and Prejudice and Tom Jones and Granada Television's Moll Flanders. Parts of the town subbed for Elizabethan London in the third-series episode two (The Shakespeare Code) of Doctor Who.
From Wikipedia.org, the Free Encyclopedia
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