Town in Warwickshire, England
Nuneaton
Nuneaton gave the world George Eliot's fictional Milby, Larry Grayson's "Shut that door!" and a name that comes from a nunnery. Here's how a Warwickshire coal town got such a story.
Key information
- County
- Warwickshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- George Eliot, coal and brickmaking, Larry Grayson, the old Priory
- What locals are called
- Nuneatonians
- Famous people
- George Eliot, Larry Grayson, Michael Drayton
About Nuneaton
A town named after its nuns
Nuneaton's name is easier to decode than most. "Eaton" is an old English word for a settlement by a river, and the "Nun" part arrived in the 12th century, when a Benedictine priory for women was founded here. The town became Nuns' Eaton, then Nuneaton. The priory was dissolved under Henry VIII in 1539, and the medieval church was largely demolished afterwards. The present St Mary's Abbey Church, on Manor Court Road, is a later rebuilding that incorporates medieval remains, and it is the best surviving reminder of why the town carries the name it does. One tip for visitors: say it "Nun-EE-tun", with the stress in the middle.
The town that became Milby
Mary Ann Evans, better known as George Eliot, was born in 1819 on the Arbury estate just outside the town, where her father Robert Evans was land agent. She grew up at Griff House, a short walk from the Coventry Canal, and spent her childhood watching farms, collieries and canal boats go about their business. She used all of it. Nuneaton appears as Milby in Scenes of Clerical Life, and the countryside and people around Chilvers Coton and Arbury echo through Adam Bede and other novels. Readers often assume Middlemarch is Nuneaton, but that book is usually linked with Coventry. Her Warwickshire childhood is stamped on nearly everything she wrote, though. Today the town celebrates its most famous daughter with a statue in Newdegate Square, a memorial garden, a hospital named after her and a George Eliot collection in the museum at Riversley Park.
Gothic fantasy at Arbury Hall
Arbury Hall, home of the Newdigate family, is one of the finest Gothic Revival houses in England. An Elizabethan house was remodelled in the 18th century with soaring fan-vaulted ceilings that look like a medieval cathedral, but were designed to be lived in. George Eliot knew the house well through her father's job, and she borrowed it as the setting for "Cheverel Manor" in her story Mr Gilfil's Love Story. Outside the town, the country park at Hartshill Hayes gives wide views across the Warwickshire countryside. Hartshill was also the birthplace of the Elizabethan poet Michael Drayton, born in 1563.
Coal, bricks and hats
Nuneaton grew fat on what lay beneath it and around it. Coal seams fed collieries across the district, while local clay produced bricks, tiles and terracotta, which helped build much of Victorian and Edwardian England. Ribbon weaving and hat making added to the mix, so that for a time the town made the stuff that went on your head as well as the stuff that built your house. The railway and canal then did the rest, carrying coal and brick out and people in. Nuneaton sits on the Trent Valley route of the West Coast Main Line, a position that has made it a busy junction for well over a century. In May 1941 the Blitz hit hard, with bombing raids on the town killing more than 100 people. Much of the town centre was rebuilt in the postwar years.
Shut that door! and the Boro
Comedian Larry Grayson, host of The Generation Game and famous for catchphrases like "Shut that door!", grew up in Nuneaton. He took the town's brand of dry, gossipy humour all the way to prime-time television. On Saturdays, the town's long-running market still draws shoppers to the centre. The football club known as the Boro has had its share of drama: Nuneaton Borough collapsed in 2008 and was reborn, then withdrew in January 2024 after losing access to Liberty Way. Its successor, Nuneaton Town, formed in 2024 and plays at Bedworth United's Oval ground, with loyal supporters still following. A little way north-west, Mancetter sits on Watling Street, the old Roman road. It's often named as one of the candidate sites for Boudica's last battle against the Romans, which adds an ancient postscript to a town better known for nuns, novels and coal.