The Friends of St Marys Lands acknowledge the passing of G.Holroyde, an early supporter of the Lands.
Geoffery Holroyde was a member of a key campaign that prevented the irreversible damage to St Marys Lands that was planned as a Warwick inner relief road type bypass. The short acknowledgement is bellow.
I am sorry to have to report that one of our long-standing members, Geoffrey Holroyde, died on 3rd December 2025 at the age of 97. His wife of some 65 years, Elizabeth, died four months before him in August 2025.
Born in Yorkshire, Geoffrey became Principal of Coventry Polytechnic, later Lanchester Polytechnic then Coventry University, and of the GEC Marconi Management College. He enjoyed a deep interest in church music and was Organist of St. Mary’s for ten years.
Among his many achievements, Geoffrey Holroyde, with the late Geoffrey Smith, played a leading part in the 1960s campaign to Stop The Inner Relief Road, a County Council scheme to build a dual-carriageway road around the northern side of Warwick town centre, from the Stratford Road via the Racecourse, across Saltisford and Cape Road, through Priory Park and, after a giant roundabout by the railway station, diagonally through the streets north of Coten End, then across St. Nicholas Park and the river to the Banbury Road. First proposed in 1949, it was a vogue scheme of the 1960s, and was not cancelled until 1973, after strenuous protests at the demolition of houses and destruction of green spaces that it required, and at the effect of the strangling concrete barrier that it would have erected between the town centre and the rest of Warwick. Stopping it required a long, sustained campaign, to which Geoffrey devoted great energy. RIP Geoffrey.
Friends of St. Mary’s Lands
