A CELEBRATION was held to mark 200 years of policing in Leamington.
Current members of Warwickshire Police were joined by retired friends of the force, local dignitaries and other guests
at the Polish Centre – the home of the town’s first police station.
They heard about the history of the building, and milestones in the policing history of Leamington, from Warwickshire Constabulary History Society members Terry Gardner and Richard Woodcock.
The Leamington Borough Police HQ was housed in what is now the Polish Centre on the High Street from 1825 to 1947, and until 1968 was the original Leamington Police Station, which moved to Hamilton Terrace before being incorporated within the Warwickshire Criminal Justice Centre in Newbold Terrace.
Following the merge of the Borough Police with Warwickshire Constabulary, our HQ was established at Woodcote House in Leek Wootton in 1947 and Warwickshire Constabulary officially became Warwickshire Police in 2001.
Ch ConAlex Franklin-Smith, who took on the top job role in 2024, spoke about more modern times and the current vision as a force, before presenting a blue plaque to Stas Librowski, chairman of the Polish Centre, to commemorate the building’s links with policing history in Leamington.
An exhibition on the bicentennial is running at the Leamington Art Gallery & Museum until the end of September.
