Formerly known as Leamington Priors,
Leamington began to develop as a town at the start of the 19th century. It was
first mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Lamintone. For 400 years, the
settlement was under the control of Kenilworth Priory, from which the older
suffix derived. Its name came from Anglo-Saxon Leman-tūn or Lemen-tūn =
"farm on the River Leam". The spa waters had been known in Roman
times and their rediscovery in 1784 by William Abbotts and Benjamin Satchwell,
led to their commercialisation.
