Description
Warwickshire or Warwick, an inland county, bounded on the NW by Staffordshire, on the NE by Leicestershire, on the E by Northamptonshire, on the SE by Oxfordshire, on the SW by Gloucestershire, on the W by Worcestershire. Its outline is irregular, but except for saliencies in the S is not far from forming four nearly equal sides. Its boundary line along all the NE is Watling Street, but scarcely anywhere is either river or watershed. Its length from N to S is 50 miles, its greatest breadth is 34 miles, its circuit is about 195 miles, and its area is 577,462 acres; population, 805,072. The surface includes few hills except offshoots of the Cotswolds, and in a general view is gently undulated, well-wooded, and softly picturesque. The chief streams are the Avon, the Tame, the Alne, the Arrow, the Stour, the Dene, the Leam, the Sowe, the Itchen or Ichene, the Rea, the Bourne, the Blythe, the Colne, and the Anker. Mineral springs are at Leamington, Newnham Regis, Southam, Stratford, and Birmingham. A coal-field, with seams of coal 3 and 4 feet thick, extends along the NE border to the SE of Tamworth, is 16 miles long, and has a mean breadth of about 3 miles. A broad tract of permian rocks, chiefly conglomerate sandstone and red marl, extends southward from the coal-field past Coventry to within a short distance of Leamington. Trias rocks, chiefly new red sandstone and keuper marl, occupy nearly all the rest of the area. Coal is extensively worked. Iron-ore, fireclay, marl, blue clay, and limestone are plentiful, gritstone is obtained at Compton, and blue flag-stone for mantlepieces and other purposes is quarried at Bidford, Wilncote, and Temple Grafton.
Soils are of nearly all kinds, but strong clay-loams and strong marly clays are most common, and with slight exceptions all the soils in most parts are very fertile. The long-horned, the Herefordshire, and the Scotch breeds of cattle are generally preferred for grazing, but other breeds are in use for the dairy. The sheep are chiefly Southdowns and polled Leicesters. Estates are of all sizes, and farms average about 150 acres, and are mostly held from year to year.
