Where to Stay in Rugby, England

What is Rugby known for?

Rugby School gave the sport its name, and the Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum sets out that claim, while the Rugby Art Gallery and Museum carries the wider record of the borough. The jet engine was also born here. Market trade and the churches of the old parish, the Church of Saint Andrew chief among them, still shape the streets between.

What are the main landmarks in Rugby?

Two museums carry the story. The Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum takes the sport's side of it, while the Rugby Art Gallery and Museum sets the town's collections beside the record of Rugby School itself in the Rugby School Museum. Churches mark the older ground: the Church of Saint Andrew in the centre, the Church of St Mary the Virgin, and the Church of St Botolph out at Newbold-on-Avon.

The Manor House and Lawrence Sheriff's House survive among them, and the round mound at Hillmorton keeps the oldest earthwork of all.

What is the history of Rugby?

A mound marks the older ground. The round mound at Hillmorton survives from the centuries before the market, when the parishes around the Avon were separate villages, each with its own church and land. Newbold-on-Avon kept the Church of St Botolph, and Brownsover kept St Michael and All Angels Church, both later swallowed by the growing town.

Rugby itself grew as a market town serving the Warwickshire farmland, with the Church of Saint Andrew at its centre and Lawrence Sheriff's House among its older buildings. Then came the school. Rugby School gave its name to a game that spread far past Warwickshire, and the Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum sets out that story while the Rugby School Museum keeps the school's own record.

The Rugby School War Memorial names the men lost in war. The jet engine was born here too. More churches followed as the town spread beyond its old core, among them the Roman Catholic Church of St Marie, the Church of St Mark, the Church of St Philip and the Church of Saint Matthew.

The Rugby Art Gallery and Museum gathers what the town has kept, and the Borough of Rugby carries the name out across the villages of the Avon valley.

Where is Rugby?

The River Avon runs close by. Rugby lies in Warwickshire, within the Borough of Rugby in the West Midlands region of England, with Newbold-on-Avon, Brownsover and Hillmorton set along the edges of the built-up area. Farmland runs to every side.

Warwickshire's fields and the villages of the borough press in on the town, and the Avon valley shapes the low ground around it.

What is the climate of Rugby?

Winters are grey more than hard. Well inland from any coast, Rugby takes the temperate weather of the Midlands: cool damp winters, warm changeable summers, and rain that arrives in any month rather than one season. Snow rarely lies long.

The season for walking beside the Avon runs from spring to early autumn, when the days are long and showers pass quickly between spells of sun.

How do you get to Rugby?

Rugby stands inland. The town lies within the Borough of Rugby in Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England, so most journeys here run overland across the Midlands rather than from any coast. Approaches pass Newbold-on-Avon, Brownsover and Hillmorton before they reach the market streets.

Warwickshire's lanes do the rest.