Hertford Street

I've mentioned before about peering into the corners of photos to see new things. I tend to think of Hertford Street as a solid block of tall buildings but as the 1850 map and this snippet of a picture show, there were originally breaks in the street front and smaller buildings. The two storey building below fronted a ribbon manufactory and the 3 storey building was the Mechanics Institute. This makes sense of Neil's photo from post 309 with its two storey buildings at the back of the Red Lion yard, which were next door to the Institute. Just a guess but the Institute building might have survived as the building in this post card by CliffB (post 335), just to the left of the Queens Hotel. This morning I have confirmed that it is the right location and on the Fire Insurance maps 1897 was the Coventry Savings Bank at number 69.

The Mechanics' Institute Building became the Coventry Savings Bank which became part of the TSB in 1975. This in later times was the Yorkshire Building Society. All at 69 Hertford Street but of course it later became part of the modern development of Hertford Street.

Thanks Anne, brilliant as usual. I see that the post office building up the street survived.

Another new view thanks to CliffB -

It's mostly a view of Broadgate I know but taken from Hertford Street and a rare capture of that building on the right on the corner of the era -

I was just looking up something under Hertford Street - and have only just realised this before & after shows the same building with the lovely arched entrance -

I think Damien is on here already so I hope he doesn't mind me sharing here this latest Herbert FB post. It's behind Hertford Street - I think at the start of its pedestrianisation with what would then have been the 'new' Barracks car park on the left. What is really interesting to me though is the unusual side aspect of The Empire aka Corn Exchange - I haven't seen that side view before. Oh and I also liked the car - I had to google-lens and it appears to be an of the era Nobel Microcar!

There's quite a two way slope on the scene. The east to west slope wasn't apparent while the buildings still existed. I'm guessing that the buildings might have had cellars?

You can kinda see the over side of that barrier from the road in this one -

A very interesting set of photos Neil. As always, all posted photos and maps are interesting to view and the accompanying text from the poster and replies. That last photograph Neil, showing the former Pearl Assurance Company sign reminded me of two, poss three, assurance/insurance companies where the agent would come to your home and sell policies and collect the monthly/weekly payments. Pearl Assurance has since been renamed Phoenix Life Assurance Limited. The other two, definitely The Prudential, now owned by M&G PLC and the other was either Britannia or Britannic Assurance. Various searches threw up too many anomalies to sift through the sales bumph for historical information.

My brother had a Nobel 3-wheeler in about the 1970s when he lived in the UK. There couldn't have been many in the city so it may be his! I'll see if he remembers the registration,