The distance between Stratford and Warwick is eight miles, and the road, the broad highway, runs direct. It is an excellent road, but for those who do not care overmuch for main routes, however beautiful, in these times, a more excellent way, for a portion of the journey at any rate, is by Snitterfield. You turn off to the left from the tree-bordered main road at a point a mile and a half from Stratford, well in view of the lofty obelisk on the hillside at Welcombe which was built in 1873 to perpetuate the memory of the obscure person, a certain Mark Phillips, who had erected the mansion of Welcombe Lodge in 1869. Without the aid of this monument he would by now have been completely forgotten; but it is 120 feet in height and prominently visible from amazing distances, and so its object is attained. Not perhaps exactly in the way originally intended, for being in a district where most things are associated in some way with Shakespeare, it is generally supposed to be one of them, and when the disappointed stranger finds himself thus deluded, he usually reflects upon Mark Phillips in the most scathing terms.
Up at Welcombe are those Dingles already referred to. The way to Snitterfield takes you uphill, past lands that once belonged to Shakespeare, and by a pond which is all that is left of the lake of Snitterfield Hall, a mansion demolished in 1820. Here the road has reached a considerable height, commanding beautiful views down over the valley of the Avon at Hampton Lucy and Charlecote.
Snitterfield village is embowered amid elms. The church is a rustic building in the Decorated style, with seventeenth-century pulpit and enriched woodwork of the same period furnishing the altar-rails. Here the Rev. Richard Jago was vicar for twenty years, dying in 1781. His duties did not bear heavily upon him, and he occupied most of his time in writing a long poem, “Edgehill, or the Rural Prospect Delineated and Moralised,” a published work which no one ever reads, the prospect of moralising held forth on the title-page scaring the timid. His vicarage remains, and on its lawn are still the three silver birches planted by his three daughters. There are some beautiful lime-trees and an ancient yew in the churchyard. No relic of Henry Shakespeare, William Shakespeare’s uncle, or of his father or grandfather, who lived at Snitterfield, now remains.
The road now trends to the right, and, steeply descending, regains the main route into Warwick. The town of Warwick looms nobly before the traveller approaching from the west. The broad level highway makes direct for it, and over the trees that border the road you see, as a first glimpse of the historic place, the lofty tower of St. Mary’s church, rising apparently an enormous height, and looking a most worshipful specimen of architecture. On a nearer approach it sinks into less prominence, and, passing through an old suburb, with a porch-house on the right, formerly the “Malt-Shovel” inn, the West Gate of the town, with its chapel above it, takes prominence.
The West Gate is one of the two surviving ancient gateways of Warwick and leads steeply up into the town beneath a rude-ribbed arch of great massiveness, based sturdily upon the dull red sandstone rock. It is a very picturesque and in every way striking composition, and if it were not for the even more picturesque scene provided by Leicester’s Hospital, just within the gate, would be often illustrated. But the nodding black and white gables of that almshouse effectually attract the greater notice. The West Gate, with the chapel above, dates from about 1360. Nowadays it is almost only the curious visitor who passes through the long, tunnel-like arch, gazing with astonishment at the sudden outcrop of rock on which the building stands, and at the ribbed stone roof supporting the chapel. A roadway has been made to the right of the gate, through the town walls, and the traffic goes that way by choice, obscuring the ancient defensive function and importance of this entrance to the town. A chapel also occupies the like position over the East Gate, and shows that the people of Warwick prayed as well as watched.
The Leicester Hospital, so-called because founded by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, looks down with admirable effect from its elevated position on the left hand, as you come up into the town; but it would look even better if it were properly kept. It very urgently needs a thorough overhauling, not in the necessity for any structural repairs, but with the object of treating the buildings in a sympathetic and cultured way. There is a vast difference between photographic views of what is called, in the Wardour Street way, “Leycester’s” Hospital, and the actual effect of looking upon the place with one’s own eyes. The Hospital, in fact, looks very much better in photographs than it reveals itself to the disappointed gaze: simply because those responsible for the upkeep of it do not understand how to treat the old timbers, and have smeared them over with black paint.
This Hospital or Almshouse occupies the site of the ancient united religious and charitable guilds of Holy Trinity and St. George-the-Martyr, with some of their surviving buildings. These united fraternities had numerous activities. They supported the priests who served in the chapels over East and West gates, and contributed towards the keep of others in the parish church; being also largely responsible for the maintenance of the great bridge, now and for long past in ruins, which carried the Banbury road across the Avon, in front of Warwick Castle. They also supported eight poor persons of the Guild. In common with all other religious, or semi-religious institutions, the Guild was dissolved in the time of Henry the Eighth, and its buildings were granted by Edward the Sixth to Sir Nicholas le Strange, from whom Dudley acquired them; or, according to another version of these transactions, Dudley had a gift of them direct from the town of Warwick, to which the Guild had voluntarily transferred its property. This gift to the magnificent Dudley, the newly-created Earl of Leicester and possessor of vast wealth and power, was not for his own personal advantage, but for the purpose of helping him to establish an almshouse, which he at once proceeded to do, in the interest of “twelve impotent persons, not having above £5 per annum of their own, and such as either had been, or should be maimed in the warrs of the Queen, her service, her heirs and successors, especially under the conduct of the said Earl or his heirs, or had been tenants to him and his heirs, and born in the Counties of Warwick or Gloucester, or having their dwelling there for five years before; and in case there happen to be none such hurt in the Warrs, then other poor of Kenilworth, Warwick, Stratford super Avon in this county, or of Wootton under Edge or Erlingham in Gloucestershire, to be recommended by the Minister and Churchwardens where they last had their aboad; which poor men are to have Liveries (viz. Gowns of blew cloth, with a Ragged Staff embroydered on the left sleeve) and not to go into the Town without them.”