The display features a portfolio of drawings by Mr William Colliss, an amateur artist, which he jauntily titled ‘Sketches taken in Warwickshire during holiday trip August 1867.

Bought by the Art Gallery and Museum at an auction held in Stratford-on-Avon in February 2008, the sketches provide a quirky and highly personal view of Warwickshire at a time when Royal Leamington Spa, where he stayed with relatives, was changing from a spa resort into a residential town. The portfolio of 41 pages of sketches and watercolour paintings, features many of the town’s landmarks.

In the preface Colliss explains that the pictures were “original drawings done on the spot.” Originally they were sketched in pencil and then, to avoid fading or rubbing out, gone over in ink.

		Page 14 shows Mr Collis with the Warwick Castle attendant. © Warwick District Council

However, in the case of the drawings of Warwick Castle, most were done from memory because, as Collis put it: “the attendant an antient [sic] Lady seized my portfolio from under my arm, petulantly remarking ‘No sketching allowed here’. This blank book was returned to me on leaving the lodge after looking over the castle’. Colliss includes an amusing, cartoon-like drawing of this confrontation.

The portfolio also contains two maps locating some of the places he visited around Leamington. These include some of the leading tourist sights of the time: Warwick Castle (shown in four scenes, including the one showing his sketch book being confiscated), Kenilworth Castle (three) and Stratford-on-Avon (two).

These remain major tourist destinations today, but there are also drawings taken of sights which are no longer so popular. Guy’s Cliffe house and mill (six scenes) and a sketch of the old oak tree on the outskirts of Leamington said to mark the centre of England offer a valuable insight into tourist attractions of the Victorian era.

Page 9 shows Warwick's St Nicholas Church opposite the castle entrance. Sketched on August 7 1867. © Warwick District Council

There are also a number of views of the town of Warwick, as well as ones taken in Leamington and surrounding villages such as Lillington, Milverton, Offchurch, Radford Semele and Whitnash.

The census records from 1861 and 1871 suggest that at the time of his holiday Colliss, although born in Bognor, Sussex, was living in Lambeth and working as a ‘Commercial Clerk to East India Agents’. He died in January 1926 at Freshwater, Isle of Wight.