A tour of Rugby and an introduction to some of its past inhabitants

Wednesday, 28 January 2009 19:26

On Tuesday we took a walking tour of Rugby! Moored above the Tesco Retail Park is quite a good place to be for Rugby, normally! However, the Black Path (a footpath into Rugby town centre) was closed at the second bridge. Nothing daunted we walked around the long way and arrived at the railway station.

Rugby is well know as the home of the sport of rugby football. Rugby also used to be a railway town and has had four stations in its time! The current one was opened in the 1880s and refurbished in 2002.

Plaque on station building, platform 1

My Great Grandfather, Charles Walter Hitchcox and my Great Uncle Albert were Guards on the London and North West Railway. The family moved here from Newbold on Avon in 1899.

From the station we walked to Abbey Street, just a few yards away. Charles Walter, his wife Mary Ann and their 12 surviving children moved into 96 Abbey Street where Albert was born, making 13 siblings all under the same roof!

96 Abbey Street

One of the twins, Gladys Amy married Allan Simpson from here at Holy Trinity Church in Rugby. My Mother was born in this house too. Suddenly it was a really emotional experience!

Holy Trinity was the family church and a number of the children were married here. Holy Trinity Church was demolished in the early 1980s and all that survives is the Lych Gate in Church Street. The eagle lectern is in Rugby Museum.

Holy Trinity Lych Gate used as an entrance for modern residential flats

St Andrews Church, just down the road, was also the church where Hilda, the eldest daughter, married Ernest Somerset Harris.

Soon the family began to disperse, the First World War intervening and eventually most of them immigrated to Canada. By August 1914 only the twins and Albert were in the UK. Charles and Mary Ann also immigrated in 1919.

Our tour continued just around the corner. Albert, married to Beatrice, moved to 99 Oxford Street in 1923, joined later by Beatrice's parents (Arthur and Elizabeth Hobley). Domestic arrangements were relieved when Albert and Beatrice moved to 88 Oxford Street at a later date! The Hobleys also moved house to 84 Oxford Street!

Our next location was out on the edge of Rugby. Here we spotted the large block that can be seen from the South Oxford canal on approaching Braunston.

Clifton Pub and the Green Tower

The tower is at the end of Townsend Road. 21 Townsend Road (on the left of the photo in this link) was the home of Adam (Arthur) Telfer and Mary Elizabeth from 1919 to 1929 when they and their son immigrated to Canada.

Our final destination was another area of Rugby. I have memories of visiting my Great Uncle Albert in Rugby. He and Beatrice bought a house in Lansdowne Place in 1939. 1 Lansdowne Place fitted my memory of this visit. My wanderings and wonderings were complete!

Actually not quite, as we then caught a bus into the centre of Rugby to visit the churches named above and spent a while in the museum too!

It was altogether a satisfying tour emotionally and gave us a real idea of Rugby that once was and is now.

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