Dunchurch

Until the 1880s, Dunchurch was of far greater significance than Rugby itself. This came about because, between 1707 and 1723, the installation of turnpikes on local roads led to such an improvement in their condition that Dunchurch Road became a major thoroughfare. Dunchurch itself became an important staging post on the London to Holyhead and Oxford to Leicester roads. The advent of the railways, however, brought an end both to the turnpike trusts and to Dunchurch’s supremacy. On the left of D92001, below, we can glimpse the 14th-century church of St Peter with its 15th-century tower and modern stained glass. Built of red sandstone, it is in the Perpendicular style on Saxon foundations. The Vicarage (not visible) is an attractive chequered brick Georgian house. In The Square in front of the church there is a row of almshouses founded in 1693 by Thomas Newcombe, printer to Charles II, James II and William III. These were rebuilt in 1818. In front of the almshouses in The Square stands a statue to Lord John Douglas Montague Scott (1809-1860). Since the 1970s it has become a tradition to dress up this statue as a cartoon or TV character on New Year’s Eve. Overlooking The Square is Guy Fawkes House, a 16th-century building with vertical half-timbering and a jettied upper floor, formerly the Lion Inn. On 6 November 1605, forty Catholic gentlemen met here to dine while they awaited news of the Gunpowder Plot. When they learned of its failure, they fled, but were later captured and executed.
An extract from from"Rugby Town and City Memories".

Another recreation ground available to Rugbeians was the Whitehall Recreation Ground on Hillmorton Road, which housed a 28-ton, armoured First World War tank presented to the town in 1919, in recognition of contributions to National War Savings. In 1940 the tank was sold for scrap as part of a new war effort. Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee was celebrated not only with the Clock Tower, but also with an extensive tree-planting project along selected roads leading into Rugby (see Clifton Road overleaf). Dunchurch, 4 miles to the south- west of Rugby, is a small village of thatched cottages and popular public houses and restaurants. The village green boasts a two-seater set of stocks (last used in 1866) and a thatched bus shelter. At the cross-roads stands the market cross on a stepped, medieval base, the cross itself replaced in 1813 by a milestone.
An extract from from"Rugby Town and City Memories".

In 1862 the church was enlarged, with a spacious nave replacing the original aisle and Lady Chapel, leaving the nave and chancel to form the south aisle. Unfortunately the tiny saddleback tower of the old church was now seriously out of proportion to the new, larger church. Captain Hibbert, now a Catholic convert, paid for a new spire and tower, both of which were constructed of Ancaster stone with ashlar dressings of the same material; the sculpture was mainly of Portland stone. The interior work was carried out by Parnell & Son. John Hardman of Birmingham made many of St Marie’s stained glass windows, though two splendid windows in the south aisle were made by Mayor of Munich. In the south aisle chapel are the archangel windows, installed in 1997 by Aidan McRae Thomson. These depict the vision of St Hubert, a hunter converted to Christianity after seeing a vision of the Holy Cross between a stag’s antlers. There is a superb sculpture of St Hubert and the stag outside the west door. Other features of interest include the wooden-beamed mediaeval style roof, the fine organ loft overhanging the west end of the church, the huge crucifix hanging above the ornate marble altar and the floor of the south aisle chapel, tiled in the Arts and Crafts style of William Morris.
An extract from from"Rugby Town and City Memories".

This separation of St Andrew’s Church from the Abbey of Leicester was to save its assets from seizure at the dissolution of the monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII — a fate suffered by both the church at Clifton and its remaining chapel at Brownsover. Henry de Rokeby pulled down the old Norman chancel and rebuilt it in 13th-century style, adding an unusual tower (72131, opposite): early commentators believed that it was intended as a place of defence, and that its construction was an attempt to circumvent the law forbidding the unlicensed building of fortifications. Until 1652 the church was much neglected, but after complaints about its dangerous state it underwent extensive alteration and enlargement. However, it still failed to keep up with the rapid rise in the town’s population throughout the 19th century, and the decision was made to rebuild the church entirely. The builders Parnell & Son and the architect William Butterfield were commissioned, and in 1877 the foundation stone was laid by Dr Temple, Bishop of Exeter and former headmaster of Rugby School. Costing over £20,000, the work was completed in 1880. The font seen at the front of photograph 72137, opposite, dates from 1743. The medieval font, in which Lawrence Sheriff had been baptised, was relegated to the courtyard of the Eagle Hotel. It served as a trough for the pump until it was rescued by the Rugby historian Matthew Bloxham. It was left in the Percival Guildhouse garden behind St Matthew’s Church until it was finally returned to St Andrew’s in the 1950s.
An extract from from"Rugby Town and City Memories".

ST ANDREW’S Parish Church is situated in Church Street, opposite the site of the original School House. There has probably been a place of worship here since Saxon times, but it was not until the 13th century that St Andrew’s became Rugby’s parish church. By 1711 the church possessed five bells and a set of chimes. Until about the middle of the 19th century, the third (curfew) bell was rung daily at five in the morning and eight in the evening, warning householders to extinguish their fires until morning; this custom dates back to the time of William the Conqueror. St Andrew’s is unique in having a peal of 5 bells in the mediaeval west tower and a second peal of 8 bells in the Victorian east tower. Clifton Road, a quiet road in the 1950s, and now a busy thoroughfare, leads to the village of Clifton-on- Dunsmore. Both Rugby and Brownsover were once hamlets in the parish of Clifton, their churches merely chapels-of-ease under the mother church at Clifton-on- Dunsmore, itself attached to the Abbey of Leicester. In 1221 the Lord of the Manor, Henry de Rokeby, reached a financial arrangement with the Abbot of Leicester that effectively converted the chapel in Rugby into a parish church.
An extract from from"Rugby Town and City Memories".