Page 213 - demo

Britain’s second biggest city has a broad swathe of attractions that might pique your
interest. Among them Aston Villa Football Club, The Black Country Museum, and Cadbury World
among them.

Click here for more on Birmingham’s attractions . . .

To get there take the Chester to Stratford touring route

Rugby

Discover the roots of rugby football by visiting The Close at Rugby School, before walking to the
statue of William Webb Ellis – the perfect backdrop for photographs. Across the road you’ll find the
Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum, which houses unique memorabilia and artefacts tracing the
history of the the game and its players.

Myth has it that in November 1823 William Webb Ellis while playing football – i.e. soccer – “with
fine disregard for the rules” picked up the ball and ran with it. Problem is that running with the ball
as a sport had been around for centuries if not millennia.

Just one small problem with that story – at the time there were no rules for either Rugby Union or
what is now called Association Football (or just football).

What is certainly true is that the first rules for rugby were laid down in 1845 by a group of boys at
Rugby School, the first written rules for any type of football game. Soccer rules weren’t codified
until 1873.

No matter, let’s not cavil about it . . . the myth is a lovely one and you can visit Rugby School and
see where that historic game was played.

The school is one of England’s oldest and most prestigious public schools, and was the setting of
Thomas Hughes’s semi-autobiographical masterpiece Tom Brown’s Schooldays. A substantial
part of the 2004 dramatisation of the novel, starring Stephen Fry, was filmed on location at Rugby
School. ”

But Rugby, in fact has three huge claims to fame: The game of rugby, the development of the jet
engine and the invention of holography.

The town is the birthplace of the jet engine. In April 1937 Frank Whittle built the world’s first
prototype jet engine at the British Thomson-Houston works in Rugby, and between 1936-41 based
himself at Brownsover Hall on the outskirts, where he designed and developed early prototype
engines.

Holography was invented in Rugby by the Hungarian inventor Dennis Gabor in 1947.

You can explore Rugby’s rich history further by following the town’s Pathway of Fame, a collection
of 50 bronze plaques set into the pavement celebrating iconic figures from the world of rugby.

To get there take the Chester to Stratford touring route