In 1795 a book was published entitled Picturesque Views on the Warwickshire, or Upper Avon, written by Samuel Ireland. The book considers the various settlements alongside the River Avon from the source on the Warwickshire borders. Although it was personally illustrated by the author during the earlier part of that decade, the specific illustrations do not relate to our two villages. The book itself can be found online via Google Books or a transcribed version is also available via the https://fiftywordsforsnow.com/ebooks/avon/ link.
About half a mile below this spot, on the bank of the Avon, stands the once celebrated Newnham Bath; famed for the cure of scorbutic and other disorders. It is said to have had great efficacy in closing and healing green wounds. The water is considered as a weak chalybeate. It has a milky taste, and issues from a mineral spring about a mile distant, from whence, passing a lime pit, it receives its chief salubrious quality.
This well is still much frequented, and would probably be much more so, were the roads kept in a passable state. The country around it is beautiful, and capable of infinite improvement. On the south-side of the river, as we approach Newnham Regis, the village of Church Lawford, on an easy eminence, forms a very picturesque object. The manor, on the attainder of the Duke of Buckingham in the 13th of Henry the Eighth, came to the crown, and was afterwards granted, by licence of Queen Elizabeth, to Thomas Leigh, Alderman of London.
The lordship is the property of the Duke of Buccleugh in right of his dutchess: He is likewise proprietor of the ancient village of Newnham Regis. About a mile below this place, at a small distance from the bank of the Avon, the town as its name imparts, appears by legal proceedings in the thirteenth of Edward the First to have been in the possession of the King.
The body of the venerable chapel of this place is now by order of its proprietor taking down, but the tower, I am informed, is to remain: the chapel has been long in disuse. In pulling down this edifice, the pavement giving way, not far from the surface a perfect skeleton, supposed to have been that of the founder, was discovered, and not far from it a seal. The altar of this church was decorated with some good paintings in fresco, well preserved, which seem to bear the character and style of painting of the time of James I. The designs are made from subjects in the New Testament, and in their manner are not unlike those of Reubens, but have more the air of the Italian school. I have preserved a fragment of this work as a specimen.
From Newnham Regis the river Avon, with little diversity of scenery, runs nearly in a strait direction, till we reach Bretford bridge, a distance of about two miles. This ancient stone structure is in the Gothic style, and consists of five arches. The bridge, though a conspicuous object on our river, is yet unaccompanied by any such feature in landscape as can give it a claim to the appellation of picturesque or beautiful.