RUGBY IS FAMOUS!

RUGBY is a market town in Warwickshire, close to the River Avon. It is near the borders of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire and is 83 miles north of London, 30 miles east south east from Birmingham and 11 miles east of Coventry

RUGBY IS FAMOUS!

RUGBY is a market town in Warwickshire, close to the River Avon. It is near the borders of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire and is 83 miles north of London, 30 miles east south east from Birmingham and 11 miles east of Coventry

Many people are unaware that Rugby is the town where the game of rugby football was invented

In 1820 the game of rugby was played rather like soccer, but players were allowed to catch the ball and kick it out of their hands. William Webb Ellis, a schoolboy at Rugby School in 1823, broke the rule one day while playing on the School’s main playing field, The Close, by taking the ball in his arms and running forward with it, thus initiating the distinctive feature of what we now know as rugby. The game is still played on The Close today

Rugby School is one of England’s oldest and most prestigious public schools and Thomas Hughes’s semi-autobiographical book Tom Brown’s Schooldays was based on his time there. In 2004 Stephen Fry starred in a dramatisation of the novel and a substantial part of the filming was on location here

Rugby is also the 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. Frank Whittle is commemorated in Rugby by a modern sculpture near the town hall

And 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 Town Centre

Most of the buildings in the Town Centre are Victorian or early 20th Century but a few much older buildings older than this still survive along with some more modern developments. The main shopping area in the town itself are in the streets around The Clock Tower which was built in 1887 in honour of Queen Victoria’s jubilee. The town centre has an indoor shopping centre called Rugby Central Shopping Centre which opened in 1979 (previously named The Clock Tower. 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

Rugby's fantastic Transport Links

Being situated in the centre of England Rugby is near several major trunk routes including the M6, M1 and M45 motorways, and the A5, A14 and A45 roads

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

Rugby Railway Station is served by West Coast Main Line and has frequent regular services to London Euston - a journey time of only 50 minutes - Birmingham New Street, Stafford and Crewe

There are also (albeit very infrequent services) between Rugby and Glasgow Central, the North West of England, Shrewsbury, Chester and Holyhead

There are direct rail links to the nearest major airport - Birmingham - 28 minutes direct or 35 minutes by road and there is also East Midlands Airport or Luton Airport to choose from

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 1800's. Several arms of the canal, closed during the 1800s, have been reopened for moorings and canal businesses