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Leamington Today - Landmarks
Disclaimer: The views and opinions represented below are purely personal and that of the author and are not intended to be in any way authoritative or at all serious.
Band Stand Location: Pump Room Gardens, Dormer Place
At one time the terribly proper venue for Sunday afternoon picnics patronized by the genteel classes replete with top-notch brass bands providing the oompahs and London educated maid servants providing the cucumber and caviar sandwiches. Or so it was in the early 1900’s. Now alas, in the 21st Century it is the gathering point for every truanting sixth former, white trash cider sniffer and podge gutted tea-leaf and ASBO aficionado in the Warwickshire district. Thus the Band Stand is practically off-limits to everybody in the town who is decent, respectable and not inebriated. Over the years the white trash dickheads have managed to vandalize the Band Stand at least three times, cover it in graffiti on a regular basis and semi-permenently carpet the whole area with broken bottles and condoms. Which is a crying shame as the Pump Room Gardens, in which the Band Stand is situated, is a lovely town centre park utilized and enjoyed by many people, both local and non-local.
I guess this kind of thing is just one of the many sad realities of modern day life and the police, to their credit, do try and clamp down on such anti social behaviour before it begins but plainly it isn’t always enough. The most annoying thing about the chavs that use the Band Stand as their HQ isn’t so much the criminal element of their number - the scruffy looking crusties who nasally beg "10p to make a phone call to their sick mummies in Coventry" - but the pathetically transparent sixth formers from one of Leamington’s more well-to-do schools who pitifully pretend to be "hard" and "street" by getting doped up on sub standard weed, drunk on cheap cider and then proceed to spend the afternoon spewing up their guts into the hot and sweaty faces of their juvenile boyfriends as they try to shag them in the toilet facilities of the nearby Royal Pump Rooms. Oh how romantic and sophisticated. Do your parents know what you’re up to? They’d cut up your Dorothy Perkins store card if they did. Nobheads.
The Campion Hills Location: Leicester Street / Black Lane
If you're a kid that has grown up in Leamington Spa then The Campion Hills - or The Camps as they are locally known - are one of those places that you just instinctively know about. They might not be as awe inspiring as a Welsh mountain or inspire poetry like the crags of the Lake District but for us locals The Camps represent a special half-wild, half-mystical place in our hearts. Situated at the top of Leicester Street and on the edge of Newbold Comyn Golf Course, the Camps can be accessed via numerous routes: Leicester Street, Black Lane, Upper Holly Walk and Princess Street to name but a few and are well worth a saunter when you feel like escaping the rat race unfolding in the Satanic Mill like streets of Leamo far below.
The brow of the main hill affords almost panoramic views of Leamington and Warwick - indeed on a good day one can cast an eye or two (macular problems excepted) upon the splendour that is Warwick Castle and the quaintness that is Chesterton Windmill. For the realists among you there are also the dubious delights of the Asda superstore at the top of Sydenham Drive and the allotments along the Radford Road - all of which can be spied upon from the heady peak of The Camps. Indeed if you go suitably armed with binoculars or a telescope (purchasable from Jessops at a reasonable price) it is truly amazing what you can spy from the vantage point of The Campion Hills... Hmm. Yes. People really should be more careful about leaving their bedroom curtains open when they're indulging in a spot of front-bottom tiddly-winks. Disgraceful.
Actually, given the lushness and green hidey-hole-ability of The Camps it is a wonder that the area hasn't become a local dogging spot... but there you go. All the hardcore perverts prefer the larger, more open air expanse of the nearby Burton Dasset Hills than the mini, Sherwood-esque properties of The Campion Hills. Which suits me just fine. I don't know what it is but The Camps occupy a sacred place in my heart and I don't wish to see it sullied by any sort of urban undesirable, no matter how much they're gagging for it. Ideally I want the area kept pure and untouched and as nature intended it... so the fact that the local council has seen fit to desecrate the area with awful tarmacadamed pathways and stark street lighting fairly gets my goat. I mean really! It was bad enough when they dredged out a BMX track from the hallowed turf at the top of the hill without encouraging hood-wearing skateboarders in their vimto stained Slipknot T-shirts to frequent the place with their awful music and their acne. And the council grants various gypos permission to hold a fair / circus there every 6 months!! Curse them all! The hills are mine! They belong to me and my band of merry men and our quiver of night-vision binoculars... "Quick boys I just heard a car pull in somewhere. Yes, there... look! They're flashing their headlights! We're in boys, we're in! Swords at the ready now... let our hot bolts fly with Mediaeval-like abandon!"
Czech Memorial Fountain Location: Jephson Gardens
I can always remember being totally intrigued by this fountain as a kid. Back then it wasn’t half as clean as it is now (having been recently refurbished and polished by the local council) and was covered in green scum and algae around its bulbous crown. Being a kid and rather innocent I just thought it looked like a weird mushroom. It wasn’t until my teenage years that I made the penis connection and decided that the Czech Memorial Fountain resembled a giant brown cock with slimy water oozing from its green be-smegged head. Ah those teenage years when any innocent shape provoked my one track mind into musings on bodily parts and sundry bodily functions... usually female I hasten to add, but the Czech fountain was so completely un-female that the only thing it could possibly be in my limited lexicon of burgeoning sexuality was... a nob.
Now, years later and one would hope more mature and steady minded, I find that gazing at the fountain elicits the exact same response. It’s a nob. Either I haven’t matured in the slightest since my sixteenth birthday (with us guys this is quite a common developmental failing, I admit) or the fountain designers had some sort of homo-erotic pretext bubbling away in their subconscious. Whatever, the Czech fountain exudes such an inevitable and yet subtle essence of penile sentience that actually drinking from it becomes a complete impossibility. Unless homo-erotica gets you off of course.
All of which is a great shame as the Czech Memorial Fountain was designed and installed as a thank you and as a permanent testament to the many Czech people who came to Leamington Spa and the surrounding areas during the war and who selflessly worked to help forward the allied war effort - many losing their lives in the process.
Yeah. Feeling guilty now aren’t you for making nob jokes about the fountain? Ha. Serves you right. Everybody knows it looks more like a clitoris...
Davis Clock Tower Location: Jephson Gardens
Built in 1926 the Davis Clock Tower has been the mighty stone phallus that has greeted visitors to the Newbold Terrace entrance to The Jephson Gardens for almost a hundred years. Dark and moodily austere (i.e. just bland and dirty), this brooding tower-ette of time has, in keeping with its very name, a huge time piece embedded in its bell end. If Rolex made phallic objet d‘art they would have built the Davis Clock Tower. Only they would have perhaps called it The Davis Cock Tower. Or something weird like that. And put a fancy wrist strap on it which had to be adjusted by a specialist before it would fit properly. And a little window for the date. And quite why they would name it after a boring snooker player is beyond me. But this is getting wildly off the point.
The point is, in this modern age of easily accessible atomic servers with which we can synchronize our PC’s, our laptops and our iPods, the Davis Clock Tower is pretty much spent as an accurate time piece. The damn thing is never right anyway. Use it to attend a job interview on time and I guarantee you’ll still be signing on at the Social for the rest of your life. But that isn’t the real point either.
The real point is this: the Davis Clock Tower isn’t about knowing the correct time while you’re out and about in Leamo snobbily snorting an ice cream in the park, it’s about appreciating the character and history of Leamington Spa and acknowledging the skilled craftsmen of old who evidently had so much time on their hands that they wasted it constructing ugly clock towers with internal workings that have all the precision timing of a condom rotting in an egg box.
And finally, one last point: don’t let your children play on the clock tower steps. Drunken yobs pee on them at night. The steps that is. And have I mentioned that the clock never tells the right time?
Hitchman Fountain Location: Jephson Gardens
Erupting on the Newbold Terrace and The Parade corner of The Jephson Gardens, The Hitchman Fountain has entertained small children and mischievous adults for decades. Built in 1869 the fountain is in remarkably good nick considering the modern world’s penchant for trashing anything that doesn’t accelerate from 0 to 120 mph in 3 seconds or store 5 billion mp3 tracks onto a hard drive the size of John Prescott’s left nipple. I think the local council have been pro-active in relation to the fountain’s maintenance and certainly on hot summer days it can often be seen spouting forth H2O in orgiastic glee. The fountain that is, not the council.
Even on days when the fountain is less incontinent (i.e. it’s dried up) great japes can still be had by paddling in the circular pool that surrounds its base. It’s great for children of all sizes and there is little danger of drowning or finding verruca plasters or condoms in the water. Now that’s the definition of "perfect" in my book. Possibly I should invest in a new dictionary...
One curious thing: in past years there have been a few curious incidents surrounding the fountain - all involving suds and detergent foam. During one summer the fountain was seen to billow forth great clouds of soap bubbles from its base like it was in a state of permanent orgasm. Nobody could account for this strange occurrence though common conjecture placed the blame squarely at the feet of mischievous students engaged in some kind of Daz outdoor challenge or a down-&-out who inexplicably possessed a packet of Persil and the urge to wash his smalls in the fountain. Who knows what the truth of the matter may be? Certainly I don’t care.
The Jephson Gardens Location: The Jephson Gardens
Much referred to in this authoritative Guide to Leamington life, The Jephson Gardens occupies a central position in the town's life both geographically and geo-socio-politically. If anybody has any idea what that actually means please feel free to flex your intellectual muscles and your IT skills by typing the definition into an email and sending it to me at the usual address. Basically what I am trying to say is The Jephson Gardens is the town's main park where everybody who is anybody and anybody who is nobody will at some point in their miserable existence conglomerate like blood corpuscles over a scab. Actually, world weary cynicism aside, The Jephson Gardens (or The Jephs as they are known locally) are an ace place to visit in any season due to its incredible flower displays, its perfectly manicured lawns, its exotic collections of plant and tree life and its white trash menagerie of ducks, geese and other river based poultry which seem to attract people from all walks of life who invariably own a cheap anorak from the Pound Shop and a loaf of mouldy bread which they shred and scatter about themselves with slack-jawed abandon. For a brief history of The Jephs follow this link: Jephson Gardens History as I really can't be bothered to go into all that dry detail myself...
...cos you want to know all about the street knowledge, don't you? What can I say? If you want the full Leamo experience then The Jephson Gardens represent at least 50% of it. It's a good place to visit if you want to check out a complete cross-section of the town's population. Find a nice park bench somewhere (preferably one that hasn't been freshly re-upholstered with guano), sit back and observe. Parading before your rheumy eyes will be a convoy of suits, hoodies, chavs, young mums, single mums, teenage mums, underage mums, shop workers, lawyers, layabouts, estate agents, keep-fit fatties, keep-fit skinnies, keep-fit asthmatics, drunks, druggies, dickheads and a few normal people like me. Just like any park in any town or city in the country I guess.
The toilet facilities aren't bad - at least they're reliable and cleaned fairly regularly and there is a Park Warden who, though heroically over-stretched, does make his presence known with reassuring regularity. By that I mean he makes his presence known in the park as a whole not just specifically in the toilets... As public toilets go the ones in The Jephs are probably some of the best in town though I still wouldn't recommend playing George Michael on your iPod unless you're really looking for fast love...
Although The Jephs are pretty safe there has been an unfortunate trend over recent years for the local alcoholics and druggies to congregate on the benches near the Hitchman Fountain. They usually hang around until midday when they are moved along by the police or the warden to another part of town where they write a Nobel Peace Prize winning novel or two before sauntering back stinking of Special Brew and vomit around supper time just in time to watch the sun setting behind the tinkling fountains (this is a reference to the water features in the duck pond, not the toilet facilities). As a rule they're not particularly violent to anybody but those of their own number. In fact the only real danger is the possibility of being flashed by one of the grim faced females who hang about with them. I don't know about you but tits down to your knees doesn't really float my boat...
There are two places to eat in The Jephs - The Aviary situated behind the Davis Clock Tower and the subtley named Restuarant In The Park situated a little way behind the duck pond. Both overpriced in my humble opinion but then I can recall the days of buying an ice cream for under a pound from the little cafe that used to be situated along the river. The park grounds are very estensive and it's worth spending a good couple of hours wandering around them and soaking up the ambience. The River Leam runs through the entire length of the park and if you come on a good day you might be lucky enough to catch one of the drunks trying to feed a hoody to one of the many swans that gather on its banks to mate. Ah bless.
Queen Victoria's Statue Location: The Parade
One of Leamington’s most overlooked landmarks, this statue of Queen Victoria arrayed in her Batman-esque robes of state and holding aloft the great ball of her Prince Albert has long stood staring unamusedly into the monging crowds as they loiter with ill intent and unwholesome consumerist desires around the shops nearby. No doubt at the time of her initial erection it was considered a fine thing indeed and a suitable celebration of the young Queen’s gift of Royal-dom to the town back in 1838. But now, Gawd bless her, Vicky is shunned and largely overlooked by passersby in favour of the newly cleansed Town Hall to her rear and the hellish belisha beacons at her feet. Somehow - possibly because of the relatively diminutive size of the statue - Queen Vic’s plinth seems to have melted into the background of the town despite it’s pole position to the front of the aforementioned Town Hall. No wonder she looks so sour faced and stern.
But the youth of today just don’t give a monkey’s about the glories of Victoria’s reign or the fact that bunging park benches around the base of her statue somehow turns it into a seating extension and somewhere to dump your McDonald’s milkshake carton when you’ve given up trying to hoover out the last dregs from the bottom of it. It’s a disgrace! I tell you, a damn disgrace! Rough fellows and grubby women of the lower orders have been noted urinating onto her plinth in the small hours of the night when it must be said that men are often far from God. And on occasion, though I quail to say it, couples have been known to commit unspeakable acts of wantonness in the very shadow of her stony disapprobation! Sirrah! Just what is the world coming to? Tennyson must be spinning in his tomb.
If you’ve a penchant for the nobility of Britain’s righteous Royals see the statue by day. If you’ve a penchant for right royal shenanigans see it by night.
Railway Bridge Location: High Street
The railway bridge is possibly the most distinctive landmark in southern Leamington Spa - or South Town as it is often known - and possibly the most defining sight in Leamington as a whole. When you see it for the first time you can’t be anything but struck by the sheer ungainliness and lumbering ugliness of the construction. Huge cross-beams and skull sized rivets act in concert to brutally dissect the sky as the bridge stretches its ponderous way diagonally from one side of the High Street to the other. Whether you approach from the Lower Parade or the top of Clemons Street your sight will be pulled hypnotically towards the mass of white metal and rust that towers 30 ft or more above the ground and regularly bears the grinding weight of commuter and freight trains on their way to and through Leamington Spa. The bridge is not a feat of elegant craftsmanship or Victorian aesthetics - instead it is a testament to practical, efficient, no nonsense engineering. And fair play, I say. I mean what need is there to gild the lily when the lily is built like a brick shitehouse?
Despite its ugliness the railway bridge nevertheless has a strange charm and beauty about it. You’d be surprised at how strongly some of the locals feel about it. Personally I think there is nothing finer in life than taking the air on a fiery skied evening in Leamington, strolling beneath the rattling supports of the railway bridge as the trains pass by overhead, watching the dislodged remnants of dead pigeons plop nonchalantly down onto the pavements beneath as they are slowly loosed from the mesh of wire netting strung out beneath the bridge’s belly where they’ve lain slowly corrupting for the last three months... ah bliss. Can life ever offer a more poetic moment than that?
Those of you training it to Leamington from the South will inevitably find yourselves rolling over the bridge on your final approach to Leamington Spa Station and in so doing will find yourself blessed with spectacular views of the not so desirable corners of Leamington Spa; the old market place at the rear of the High Street (now a wasteland of rubble and 50cc motorbike enthusiasts), the grubby dwellings above the shops along Bath Street (you’ll be amazed at what you can see through the windows) and the sad assortment of working men’s pubs, karaoke taverns and greasy spoons that line the pavements of the High Street and the pockets of those who manage them. New York eat your heart out. Welcome to Leamington Spa. Head for the brighter lights at the top of town at your earliest convenience... unless you fink your tuff enough to mix it wiv the best ov us here at the bottom end of town? Yeah? Come and get sum!
Regent Hotel Location: The Parade
Dating from 1819 and the work of C. S. Smith of Warwick The Regent Hotel was originally constructed in Flemish bond with painted stucco facades and is believed to be the second oldest purpose built hotel in England and the oldest of its type to survive. It gained the name of Regent after the Prince Regent himself - shortly to become King George IV - stayed there for a mucky weekend replete with faggots and tiffin and was so impressed with the dungeon facilities that he gave the hotel owners permission to change the hotel’s name. "You scurvy knaves may have the honour of thus naming your brand spanking new bordello after me, sirrah, and long may those who sail in her have lusty fulsome sails and stiff rudders! Come Blackadder, we must away to London before these awful Leamingtonian cut-throats try to land the room service bill upon me..." Thus Ye Olde Fawlty Towers became The Regent Hotel and was soon swamped in Hanoverian glory. Urgh. Totally refurbished and refitted in 2006 and currently run by Travelodge, this Grade II listed building has now been brought bang up-to-date complete with a modern restaurant stylishly called The Leamington Bar and Grill and a line of boutique stores gracing its blunderous nether regions. Poor Prinny must be spinning in his jewel encrusted coffin. Hey ho.
With top class guests on its books - people like Arthur The Lord Wellesley and Queen Victoria (and possibly Jodie Marsh who came to a nite club opening in Leamo a few years ago though I can’t prove it) - the Regent Hotel has long enjoyed an elegant reputation in Leamington Spa’s town centre. You don’t get much more top-notch than the Regent. If it’s good enough for Jodie Marsh’s boobs (both completely natural, you know) then it’s good enough for me. Just bear in mind that this topnotchedness comes at a price and rooms at the Regent ain’t cheap. After all you’re paying for town centre accommodation, grilled food, and the chance of a peek at Jodie’s pink nosed puppies. If you can’t afford the bling then give the YMCA a ring. Either that or sleep rough. Just don’t try and bum spare change from me when I’m on my way to the opera.
Spa Water Tap Location: The Parade
Located on the north side of the Victoria Bridge just outside The Royal Pump Rooms this small, misshapen stone phallus represents the commodity that made Leamington Spa both great and famous... the spa water. Installed in 1999 when The Royal Pump Rooms were newly re-opened the Spa Water Tap has stood as a testament to the enduring popularity of Leamington's saline spring waters. Now with new slate panels advertizing the virtue of the spa water in "ye olde wordes of wisdome" this tap is one of the few remaining access points to the famed waters of Leamington. In fact I'm pretty sure that it is the ONLY point now from which visitors and locals alike can draw themselves a heady brew of the sulphurous elixir. And I have to say that although I am not a personal fan of the mildly laxative waters (I kid you not) there are those who even to this day swear by them and still complete a pilgrimage each week to this turdy looking sculpture there to siphon off a couple of litres of the warm mineral rich liquid pumped up from deep within. Oo-er.
I have it on good authority that although most of the wells in Leamington have now been closed and built over a bore hole has been sunk in a secret location in The Jephson Gardens and an industrial pump fitted to draw up the water from the underground reservoir and pump it across to the very tap that you see digitally reproduced in the picture above (via various water treatments and sediment tanks to ensure that the water is perfectly safe for all to drink). However, although the Spa water might be safe I have my doubts as to the hygienic qualities of the tap itself which is often besmegged with dubious matter of a moist nature... but far be it from me to suggest that the Spa Water Tap is used as a urinal by the clientele of the neighbouring pubs that pass by each night as they wend their sorry-arses home via one of Leamo's many cheap and nasty kebab joints.
No. Ignore such scurrilous rumours! The Spa water is a must for any serious visitor to the town. It is the exemplary Leamington experience. Bring a 2 litre water bottle and fill yer boots with Leamington's finest brew, my friends...! Warwick Hospital's phone number can be found in any local phone book. In cases of extreme stomach cramps and internal haemorrhaging dial 999 and try to keep any spilled colonic tissue contained within a plastic bag if you have one or in your hands if you don't. It's amazing what medical science can do these days.
Town Hall Location: The Parade
Ah – the Town Hall. The embodiment of a town’s status and grandeur. The personification of its wealth and aspirations. Or a big red brick building stuffed full of cigar smoking gut busters (male, female & shemale) and double breasted racketeers who meet once a month to swap tales of lurid jollies and embezzled millions and to fart little brown bubbles surreptitiously into the built-in basement jacuzzi whilst snacking on half a roasted pig’s leg and pawing greedily at some fat call girl’s mammary gland... such is the image that most local people have of the internal goings-on of their beloved Town Hall. And alas, none of it is true. Not one iota. Instead the life of Leamington’s Town Hall is interminably dull and mundane and I doubt it has ever seen the wrong end of call girl’s telephone number let alone the wrong end of an actual call girl. I strongly suspect that nothing noteworthy or dirty ever takes place there beyond a few favourable decisions for business-men friends and Masonic Masters and pooh-poohing plans for yet another skate board rink in the local park. I think the building is even designated a no smoking zone (like all Council buildings) so even the cigars have been outlawed. How boring.
However since it’s jet wash and brush up a few years back the mighty edifice that is the Town Hall has at least benefitted from a rise in cultural and architectural appreciation. It’s a fine looking building and those of you with an architectural bent will no doubt find much to swoon over in its finely crafted lines and curves. Slightly set back from the main thoroughfare on which it resides, the Town Hall is an imposing sight and yet manages to fit in comfortably with its surroundings without appearing to bully any of the lesser buildings that surround it. Put another way; if your huge great Auntie Flo was a building she’d be the Town Hall. Big, portly, vast, authoritative and yet somehow warm and comfy at the same time. But unlike your great Auntie Flo, the Town Hall is quite easy to get into – record fairs are regularly held there and many of the Council meetings are open to the public even if they’re not widely publicised as such. Why not go along, grab yourself a pig's leg and demand a freebie with the call girl in the basement jacuzzi?
Willes Obelisk Location: Jephson Gardens
One of the mightiest erections of 1875, the Willes Obelisk was raised in gratitude to Edward Willes - philanthropist and landowner - for his generosity in giving over some of his fine and fertile acreage to the public good for use as a parkland and dogging area. The area soon became famous for its perambulating women and furtive men who for some reason found the bushes very interesting and worthy of closer observation. The bushes of the parkland that is and not the bushes of the perambulating women who hid those particular bushes beneath their bustles. Edward’s father, Edward Senior, had been less generous in his lifetime and had only parted with his land begrudgingly and at extortionate prices. Hence Edward Junior's amazing act of charity made a huge impression on the grateful townsfolk and they felt honour bound to commemorate it in some way. And what better way than by erected a big stiff needle in thanks to Edward Junior? And to avoid any possible accusation of insult ("A needle? A needle?! Just what are you grubby little oiks impying?") they decided to rather pretentiously call it an obelisk. And all was well.
Now the obelisk has become something of a curiosity in the Jephson Gardens where it now peaceably resides and few realize (a) what it is and (b) what it’s there for. But that is no matter. Small children are able to climb it’s shallow steps and imagine that they are Sir Edmund Hilary and the resident ducks and geese are able to shat on the self-same steps and imagine that this somehow makes them more endearing to the public who flock to the gardens to hurl boulders of stale bread at them in the pond.
I’m just impressed that I managed a whole review about a big stone needle without making any blatant nob jokes. So impressed in fact I demand an obelisk be raised in my honour. Naturally it must be about 12 metres tall with a bulbous throbbing end the like of which would cow a charging elephant. Marble or bronze, I don’t mind. Maybe gold filigree around the pinnacle? Yeah, tasty.
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