Canley (inc. Sir Henry Parkes School)

I lived in Canley Road for many years. I always thought it odd that Canley Halt was miles from Canley. Tile Hill station is nearer a lot of Canley. They've now scrapped the "Halt" bit. I used it only yesterday to get a train to Bletchley.

PS on the deeds to my parents' house, Canley Road was Canley Lane. There were only half a dozen or so houses. The A45 was not there, nor was the Canley/Cannon Hill Estate. It was all farm land. That was in the 20s or 30s.

Hi Slim, From what I see on the 1926 maps Canley Lane stretched from Hearsall Common past Ivy Farm Lane and then down to Kenilworth Road. It was then all in Westwood Parish. In 1926 Coventry Corporation bought sunstantial lands (2,300 acres) from Lord Leigh and in 1928 extended its boundaries to include Canley and Fletchamstead (now partly Canley and partly Tile Hill). However in the 1938 map revision the portion of Canley Lane from Hearsall Common to the bypass remained as such, but beyonf the bypass it became Canley Road and from the sharp turn to the east after Canley and Ivy Farms it became Cannon Hill Road. Now of course Canley Road stretches from the Common to the bypass, and from the bypass to Kenilworth Road is now all Cannon Hill Road.

On a completely different forum there are complaints about Burton Green now not including the original village in Hob Lane.

Hello Francis, I remember you and your family very well. I lived in Templars Fields (19) a lifetime ago and I seem to recall you playing Basketball at Woodlands. If memory serves me correctly, I believe your Dad was injured in a car accident.

Boys: Tom Windsor, David Bailey, Chris Harden (left one-term early to go to boarding school).

That looks like an interesting little spot (a conservation area). There are some 13C listed buildings there as well, according to English Heritage. I read a forum in which someone was describing Canley as a terrible place - yet part of Canley is one of the wealthiest areas of the West Midlands! Post copied from topic Canley Hall on 15th Aug 2016 7:45 am

Let me describe the block where I live flap. The block comprises 63 flats. None of the residents are in gainful employment - many of them for over 30 years. Yet not one resident seeks work. All residents rely on state benefits of one kind or another. A druggies runner delivers on a daily basis and the number of 'pushers' in the block is astounding. Emergency ambulances are called on an all too frequent basis. The fire alarms are set off at least once a week. In summer months the sound from their regular parties overspills into a number of surrounding streets. Given that description you could imagine how it would look in statistics. Given that description you would imagine a den of iniquity. It is not. It is merely a retirement home. And it is in Canley.

People tend to define places by the 'council estates' in Coventry. Most of Canley is leafy suburbia. Even the post-war bits aren't that bad, I used to cycle around it a few years back when I was trying to get fit (the large boulevards are perhaps the only remnants of plans to build similar boulevards out to the suburbs). Tile Hill gets the same bad reputation, when it's mainly fine.

At school, when asked where I lived, I couldn't give the true answer, without a lengthy explanation of what and where Canley Gardens was. It lies between Canley and Earlsdon, so if I said Canley, the response was "Pwoaarh - that's a rough area!". Earlsdon got "Oo, ay say old bean, la-di-dah, everyone in Earlsdon is a snob". It's called stereotyping. The top end of Canley had a reputation. Everyone had heard about the infamous Miller gang. Their reputation spread as far as Canley Gardens. "You don't mess with the Miller gang." In recent years a lady who has since retired, i.e. she's a few years older than I, and who for many years lived near the Canley shops in Prior Deram, knew all about the Miller gang, but had never actually met any of them. I have yet to find anyone who has actually encountered them. Back in the seventies, certain areas of Coventry were referred to by tradesmen as Dodge City 1, 2, and 3. Canley was not one of them. They were Wood End, Bell Green and Willenhall respectively.

Staff are in stocking the shelves ready for Thursday's grand opening. I won't go for a couple of weeks as it will be a madhouse.

Looking at the Coventry Telegraph earlier I noted that the McDonalds being refurbished is on Arlington Business Park, Never heard of it by that name before. So how much of the previous Standard-Triumph works forms Arlington?

£10million redevelopment plan for Canley - report

Looking for old school friends fron Sir Henry Parkes, Canley - Phyllis Gibson, Sandra Munrow, Anna Chapman. And anyone who was at that school when I was there. Pamela Brown, now Wright - lived John Rous Avenue.