The Dark Side of Warwick

Most people understand Warwick as a charming county town with characterful architecture and pleasant green spaces. The truth of Warwick’s history, however, reveals a far more complicated and difficult story than the picture of quaint englishness that first meets the eye.

The very foundation of the town as a community was motivated by the threat of the Danish invasion over 1000 years ago. Aethelfleda - warrior queen and daughter of King Alfred the Great - dug the town’s old boundary in 914 as part of her defensive strategy.

The emblem of Warwickshire - the bear and the ragged staff - is equally riddled with a conflicted history. A popular account of the emblem’s origin is one of treachery and self-interested alliance with a Norman enemy. Before the Norman invasion in 1065-66, the Saxon Sheriff of Warwickshire’s emblem was also the bear and the ragged staff. He was called Thorkell of Arden, and was later known as the traitor Earl because he turned his back on the saxons and gave help to the invading Normans. As a consequence, it is possible that the victorious Normans continued to use his emblem as a sign of gratitude for his treachery.

Some centuries later, the town was divided by internal conflicts following the Great Fire of Warwick in 1694. Many of the townspeople felt exploited by the masons and magistrates who profited from the disaster.

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