Warwickshire

Warwickshire, administrative and historic county of central England, in the Midlands region. As an administrative and geographic unit, the county dates from the 10th century, with the historic county town (seat) of Warwick lying roughly at its centre.

Covering a smaller and somewhat different area than the historic county, the present administrative county of Warwickshire comprises a largely rural landscape of woodlands, fields, and pastures, with only a few large towns. It includes five districts: Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick, and the boroughs of North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth, and Rugby. The administrative county lies mostly within the historic county, but it includes three areas in Stratford-on-Avon district that belong to other historic counties. The parish of Oldberrow and an area along the River Stour extending from north of Alderminster to south of Shipston-on-Stour lie within the historic county of Worcestershire. An area south of the River Avon (Upper, or Warwickshire, Avon) and west of the Stour, including Welford and Upper Quinton, belongs to the historic county of Gloucestershire.

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Although the historic county of Warwickshire excludes those areas, it encompasses a much larger, more populous, and heavily urbanized area in the north. That area, in the present metropolitan county of West Midlands, includes all or part of three metropolitan boroughs: Solihull and the cities of Birmingham and Coventry. The historic county also includes the part of the borough of Tamworth east of the River Tame and south of the River Anker, in the present administrative county of Staffordshire.

The administrative county of Warwickshire drains mainly to the west into the River Avon and its tributaries. In the extreme south are the headwaters of the River Cherwell, a tributary of the River Thames, and in the north an area drains to the River Trent. Sedimentary rocks, including the brightly coloured new red sandstone, underlie the undulating countryside. In the north there are coalfields, and mining took place around Nuneaton from the 13th through the 20th century. Glacial drift coats many parts of the county.

In early times much of the historic county was heavily wooded, and prehistoric settlement seems to have been sparse. Of the several major Roman roads that passed through the area, one—Watling Street—still forms the county boundary with Leicestershire to the northeast. However, there were no important Roman settlements. In Anglo-Saxon times the area was part of the kingdom of Mercia, which was absorbed during the 9th century by the kingdom of Wessex. The lands north of the Avon, which became known as Arden, were heavily wooded, with dispersed settlement and isolated farmsteads. South of the Avon lay Feldon, open countryside with nucleated villages such as Brailes and Kineton. That geographic distinction continued well into the Norman era.

During the Middle Ages major towns grew at Warwick and Kenilworth, each with a Norman castle. There are a number of moated houses in the county, such as Baddesley Clinton Hall and Maxstoke Castle, both built in the 14th century. The villages of Beaudesert and Berkswell have Norman churches. Sutton-under-Brailes and Pillerton Hersey have Early English churches, and Knowle has a Perpendicular, or Late Gothic, structure. During the late Middle Ages the southernmost part of the historic county, at the edge of the Cotswolds uplands, thrived on wool production while in the north Birmingham developed as a metalworking centre and Coventry was an important woolen-manufacturing and ecclesiastical centre.

Stratford-upon-Avon, the 16th-century birthplace of William Shakespeare, has many buildings associated with the famous dramatist and poet. The Battle of Edgehill, the first serious clash of the English Civil Wars, was fought in Warwickshire near the Oxfordshire border in 1642. The medicinal springs at Leamington attracted health seekers as early as the 18th century, and, after the visit of Queen Victoria in 1838, the resort town became known as Royal Leamington Spa. During the 18th and 19th centuries the construction of canals and, later, railways spurred the development of Birmingham and Coventry as industrial centres with important metallurgical and machinery-manufacturing sectors. By the 20th century Birmingham was at the centre of one of the largest metropolitan areas in Britain, and residential and commercial development extended across the surrounding countryside.

Since the creation of the separate metropolitan county of West Midlands in 1974, the administrative county of Warwickshire has been largely agricultural. Dairy farming is important, and the southwestern part of the county, bordering the fruit-growing Vale of Evesham, is noted for orchards and market gardening. The coalfield in the northern part of the county is industrialized, and light industries and residential suburbs have spread from the manufacturing belt of the West Midlands. Area administrative county, 763 square miles (1,975 square km). Pop. (2001) administrative county, 505,860; (2011) administrative county, 545,474.