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Avon Industrial Estate, Butlers Leap, RUGBY, CV21 3UY

The original "handmade" Rugby Ball manufacturer was based in the Town Centre for over 150 years before moving to the Industrial estate. Whether much is still made here is doubtful.

Looking from Prospect Way over the car breaker's yard towards the Alba warehouse.

The rugby field at Mill Road is at present covered by the River Avon. The embankment in the distance is The Oxford Canal.

The River Avon bursts its banks after a period of heavy rain.

The River Avon engulfs the playing field.

View westward in the Locomotive Yard to the Shed - with enthusiasts wandering about. At the time (1953) this principal ex-London & North Western Depot consisted of two Sheds, each with 12 roads: these may have been needed in pre-Grouping times when all main-line expresses called at Rugby, but were already superfluous in the latter days, so even on Sundays (as here) there were not many locomotives left standing out in the Yard. (Visible in this photograph are:- 4-6-0 No. 45000, 2-8-0 No. 48085, 0-8-0s Nos. 48915, 49447 and 49452, and 0-6-0T No. 47379). The Depot provided some of the motive power for freight and secondary passenger trains on the West Coast Main Line, the main line to Coventry and Birmingham, and the lines to Northampton, Market Harborough and Peterborough, also to Leicester and the branch to Leamington. Its allocation in 1954 was 88, comprising:- 38 4-6-0s, 7 4-4-0s, 10 2-8-0s, 11 0-8-0s, 7 0-6-0s, 9 2-6-4Ts, 1 2-6-2T, 1 2-4-2T and 4 0-6-0Ts. The Depot closed to steam on 25/5/65, then was used as a stabling point for Diesels for a few years after.

Network Rail Plant Depot which was formerly Locomotive repair sheds.

In Mill Road, when built in the early 1980s this was the UK Headquarters of the German electronics company Grundig, who were later absorbed into the giant Philips corporation.