# Warwickshire

URL: https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/car-hire/warwickshire

Performance & Prestige has no depot, branch or rental counter in Warwickshire and holds no premises there. Every lease is delivered to an address you choose and collected from it afterwards.

Warwickshire is where a good deal of the British motor industry actually works, and it is surrounded by the kind of roads that explain why people care about cars in the first place. We deliver to Leamington Spa and Kenilworth, to Warwick, Barford and Wellesbourne, into Stratford-upon-Avon, out through Henley-in-Arden and Tanworth, and south to Shipston and the villages along the Cotswold edge. Three market towns with medieval or Regency centres means the handover street matters here more than the mileage does. Over a longer agreement the geography does the rest of the work: the M40 is on the doorstep for the week and the Fosse Way and the Cotswolds are there for the weekend. We hold no premises in Warwickshire, so there is nothing to travel to and nothing to collect.

Typical delivery: Which of the three towns you are in sets most of this. Warwick is entered through narrow historic gateways with tight streets behind them. Leamington runs controlled residents parking across its Regency terraces. Stratford carries tour coaches all day and empties a theatre in the evening. Village and country addresses are simpler, because there is usually a drive. Event traffic on the M40 corridor is the other factor, and it is predictable if we know the date. The window is set against those, put to you by a person, and holds once you have agreed it.

Warwick's centre sits behind medieval gate arches with restricted width and height, and the streets beyond them are narrow, one-way and heavily parked, so a handover happens outside that core rather than inside it. In Leamington the crescents and parades are handsome and almost entirely permit-controlled, which means agreeing a bay and an hour. Stratford's riverside car parks fill by the middle of the morning through the season. Out in the villages it is usually a drive, and the only things worth mentioning in advance are deep gravel, a cattle grid or a steep apron at the gate, all of which are common on the older properties here.

Postcode areas covered: CV, B.

## Where can a car legally stand in Warwick, Leamington and Stratford?

In Warwick, outside the gates rather than inside them, on one of the wider approach roads or a hotel forecourt. In Leamington, an agreed bay or a forecourt, because the residents schemes cover most of the central streets and enforcement is routine. In Stratford, away from the riverside and away from the theatre at turning-out time, when a car stopped on Bridge Street becomes the evening's obstacle. Give us the address and we will name the street rather than leaving you at a window watching for us to appear.

## Which roads here are worth driving?

The Fosse Way is the obvious one, running Roman-straight across the county with long sightlines and very little traffic midweek. It also has concealed crossroads at field boundaries, which is precisely where a straight, quick road becomes a dangerous one, so the entertainment is in the flow rather than the speed. The lanes around Ilmington, Edge Hill and the Burton Dassett ridge are the more interesting drive, and the Cotswold edge starts within a short run of Shipston. North, the Arden lanes around Tanworth and Henley are quiet and well surfaced.

## Is the Cotswolds part of the same run?

Chipping Campden, Broadway, Moreton and Shipston sit on the county's southern boundary rather than beyond it, so a car delivered in Warwickshire and collected in the Cotswolds at the end of the term is one arrangement quoted against both addresses. That works particularly well in the other direction too: a house up there for the summer and a town address for the winter is a normal shape for an agreement rather than an awkward one. Send both postcodes and each end is priced against the real address before anything is agreed.

## What does a big motorsport or show weekend do to the roads?

It fills the M40 and the A43 corridor for days rather than hours. The circuit just over the Northamptonshire border draws campers in from the Thursday of a race weekend, and the approach junctions queue well before the gates open. The showground at Stoneleigh does a smaller version of the same thing to the lanes around Kenilworth, and race days at Warwick and Stratford tighten both towns for an afternoon. Give us the date with the address and the handover gets set ahead of the build-up rather than into the middle of it.

## Why is this county so tied up with cars?

Because a great deal of the industry is here and has been for a long time. The British Motor Museum at Gaydon holds the national historic collection, and there are working engineering and design sites within a few miles of it. Coventry, on the county's edge, built cars for most of the last century. The practical consequence for a visitor is a county where a low, loud car on a Sunday morning attracts far less attention than it would elsewhere, and a set of roads that were being used for testing long before anybody called them a driving route.

## Do you deliver to the villages and country venues?

Barford, Wellesbourne, Lighthorne, Ettington, Alderminster, Tanworth-in-Arden, Bearley, Kenilworth, Southam and Rugby are all part of the same run, along with the country-house and barn venues that take weddings from spring through to autumn. Those venues are date-fixed by definition, so a car needed for one is worth settling early. Gravel sweeps and cattle grids are common on the older properties, and a photograph of the entrance sent with the postcode saves any discussion on the day about whether the car will go in.

*Pre-launch note: the driver criteria, deposits, excesses and mileage allowances quoted here are read from Performance & Prestige's own catalogue data, which is still being confirmed with the owner and the insurer. Read them as the shape of the figures rather than as a quotation. What binds is your written quote and your agreement.*