Longford (inc. The Red Hills)

Thank you Morgana for putting on the photos. Some of the houses still on Market square would have been there in my great-grandfather's day so I wonder which one he lived in? I also wonder whether the old skating rink at the back of the shops was demolished or just altered? The last question I have is about Lady Lane. I know it was called Canal Lane before about 1913, but what about before the canal was built? My brother and I have a theory that Lady Lane may well be very ancient indeed. Prior to the canal being built (and also the main Coventry turnpike road) it would probably have been joined to Woodshires Road, turning off right at the Wilson's Lane/Rowleys Green Lane junction, towards the Chasewood Lodge care home which would have originally been a moated manor house on land said to have once been owned by Lady Godiva, and presumably built with a road close by. From there we theorised that the road would have crossed the "Church Fields" as we used to call them, and emerged at Exhall Green, a road which even today has ancient houses on it. This may well have continued onto what is now Park View Close and through the ancient track way we called "the back of the tins" to Hayes Lane and on to a further ancient track way to what is now the Saunders Avenue area. leading into Bedworth. Can anybody cast any more light on this?

Your welcome David H . If you could give me your great grand dads name I can ask the lady who owned the end shop by the Saracens head as she still live there, to see if she can recall which house your great grand dad lived. Your bother and yourself are correct Lady Lane was the main road to Bedworth. I know of the tins Hayes Lane as I use to live with my father in law end house of Hayes Lane which lead to the jitty to the tins. Just before the foot bridge Lady Lane where they have built the new houses and bungalows is a Tudour hedge row of trees listed I was informed by the historian . I know the builders told me it was a nightmare as they were not allowed to touch them but go around them, so yes Lady Lane as you said is very old. Grange Road where I use to live by the Grey Hound that use to be called Green Lane it was the main route for the stage coach driven by horses , it continued through Longford Park which is said is still there bottom of Grange Rd which must be the enterance to the park. As for what Lady Lane was prior to Canal Rd that I do not know but could ask a historian over the foot bridge next time I see him. I do know that there was a foot way prior to the canal being built on that bridge top of Lady Lane. The canal was first built in 1760s the first part of the Oxford canal. I shall ask about what happened to the skating rink for you.

Morgana I was looking at your photos and noticed Longford Parish church . I realised that I must have passed it a thousand times without actually looking at it properly . The steeple especially looks fantastic , a piece of Gothic added to what is otherwise quite a plain building . Here's a coincidence , I happened to have some family papers on my desk at the time and there was my Mum's baptismal certificate with a picture of Longford Church , dated 2nd January 1927 . It all adds up to a sense of belonging .I will certainly go and have a good look at the church next time I'm in Cov . Thanks so much for your pictures .

Warlus I m so pleased its made you feel a sense of belonging especially having your mothers baptist certificate there. More detail than you think as it took me weeks to draw it from my window 16 years ago . You can zoom in I hope.

Spot on, Morgana, identifying the laneway (dare I say "jetty/jitty") that once led to the Skating Rink!

David H - Hi, Scuzzy joint or no scuzzy joint, where lovers meet is a thing of history, a thing of poetry, and without that meeting where we would have been? No correspondence 'tween thee and me is for sure. So glad about your affection for Longford, and doesn't it today (courtesy of Midland Red, Morgana, Jeff in the Topshops and others, their superb photograps) look magnificent? The Orchard, opposite the Skating Rink is long gone, but I may imagine - others may also imagine - the awful things that might have replaced this wondrous place, except that it did not, just good planning and execution. There - at the Orchard, where - as a kid - perhaps with a packet of five Woodbines - a boy/girl might construct a fort/whatever in which to savour the ciggy-smoke and contemplate the world and its many and various wonders/irritants, and imagine life as it should be. Such was the grace and favour of the city planners that today - in Longford - there are any number of places where imagination might run wild. Ain't it a grand old place?!

Grange Rd Longford bith place of Tom Mann

The Longford rink enterance the best photo I could get for you Longford lad which the gym has extended with a building seen bottom right they built on top of it.

Ah, morgana, but the romance of that dark passage-way to the cheap entertainment that was the Rink is now lost. True, the. bins lend their characteristic touch to the alley, but nobody associates garbage cans with romance - or, indeed, with cheap entertainment (unless one is a vandal). But it has become what it has become, and there's nowt much we might do about it. Of course, back in the day, so to speak/write, the British class system made itself clear, even in this "scuzzy joint" (as I described it elsewhere on this thread). There were those of us who, upon entering said "scuzzy joint" would have to make for the roller-skates that came free with the admission. These were rather sad pieces that attached to the underside of ones street shoes, held in place by a laced toe-holder at the front and a buckle-and-leather strap affair at the heel and `round the ankle. With some careful adjustments and a pound or several of luck, a person might essay a couple of runs around the rink before one or other of the skates - occasionally both - fell off, causing a withdrawal to the sidelines, a "pit-stop", as one might describe it. "Others" were given to presenting themselves for an hour or so of roller-madness and roller-mischief, but these "others" - not local, as I recall - took off their street shoes and placed on their feet wondrous devices that combined shoe-boot and rollers. (Later, I was to discover - courtesy of BBC TV - that folks that skated on ice wore similar things, but with blades not rollers beneath the soles and heels of the "sort-of-a-shoe/boot".) A goodly number of those shod in this fashion were girls who donned a daintier version of the "sort-of-shoe/boot" that the boys sported. I remember that, very early in my roller-skating career (certain episodes of which are featured in John - Capt. Jack to his friends - Ashby's seminal literary achievement, FREE SKATES OR TRADE UNIONS, WHICH WAY FOR US COMMON COVENTRY FOLK?), I approached a girl of my own age (give or take) and invited her to be my partner in a roller-skating dance duo (forward only, no reverse). Demurely, I thought, her eyes dipped below mine in the face of my advance. Little did I know that what I immediately thought of as maidenly-innocence and feminine charm was merely an intuitive glance at the manner in which I - the little roller-skater - was shod. Her devastating response to my invitation was to the effect that I should seek a partner among the local girls, girls from Bedworth Road, Lady Lane, Hurst Road, The Croft or such. As you may imagine, my "plussed" was never so "non-"ed. I was speechless, and - in such a state withdrew my suit in favour of another attempt to roller backwards, a skill I never mastered, for I was a progressive, and doing anything backwards was beneath/behind/beyond me. I ceased roller-skating. So here is my personal history in a nutshell. Later, though essentially a conservative guy - welcoming "change" so long as everything remained the same - I joined the Youth Section of the Labour Party at the age of fifteen. All that Marxism I had to read, not to mention the Fabian Society claptrap, and all on account of some accountant`s daughter from Cheylesmore (I may have created this part) having brushed me off in no uncertain a fashion! Still and all, I did read (still own a copy of) PIONEERS TO POWER by Yates, and I do not know where I would be this day without its credo of Socialism in One City! LongfordLad, Lieutenant-General, Woodcraft Folk, Peoples`Republic of Guildwood, Toronto

At least Longfordlad you still have your romantic memories bins and all. I remember the old skates I use to try and skate but the skates laces kept coming undone and I kept falling so I gave up The British class system still remains. I find it laughable as the jeans we wore back then, now the well to do wear , as to the music festivals which the poor frequented but now its the well off people on good wages that go. Again the same with the canal where the poor worker once worked and lived with a family of twelve children on a narrow boat then were forced into cottages to educate their children . Where now its the well off who use the canals for leisure and holidays some live on them. I am wondering will the gypsy way of life will become the future well off way of life, as Aesops fables says, more fool is the man who builds a house with no wheels. I suppose myself and scrutiny lives a little like the gypsy s where we have taught our children and grand children alternitive trades and skills which schools lack.

My pals and I absolutely loved Longford Rink . We never skated , couldn't afford to and anyway didn't have the skill to do more than career round very clumsily . We were drawn by the pop music played at a deafening volume to overcome the noise from the skates . We used to go there several evenings each week and although I would have been better employed in doing homework I wouldn't change a minute .I think it cost a shilling to watch but even that sum was usually beyond us so we got in through the emergency doors . The snooker hall a few yards away was also a great place when we were a little older and in funds . A quick change of subject .I've been looking again at the church ,There are buildings to the rear and to the side .Would these have been the Parish Hall or perhaps a C of E school?

Perhaps it was both (Parish Hall/C of E School). I followed my older (by six years) brother into Foxford Elementary (ages 5 through 15), as it then was known, as a primary school student, but my younger (by two-and--half years) brother commenced his education at Longford Road C of E (I do not recall its ever being known as St Thomas's) Primary School. He sat his eleven-plus exam there, and the result determined that his best interests would be met (educationally and geographically) by the school on Hurst Road/Grange Road known as Foxford (a drum-roll here, or at least a rim-shot) Comprehensive (a word in the 50s that held for the good Councillors and Aldermen of Coventry a most modern connotation, and - ergo - was GOOD beyond belief) School. Before Longford Road School closed, it seems to me that the two-storey building that St Thomas's owned on Hurst Road, just a little down (using my Longford language now) from the top-shops that faced - across the top of Hurst Road - the magnificent church itself. This, I believe, functioned as the Parish Hall. It was there that the St John's Ambulance Brigade recruited and taught young lads and lasses the intricacies of First Aid.- "prepping" for triple-bypasses, open-heart surgery (our penknives - as issued - blunt but ever-ready), and sex-change operations (still then in their infancy). We wore a uniform that represented a "free pass" to anyone in need of a fainting spell outside the COACH & HORSES, THE SARACEN'S HEAD, or wherever. Just the sight of our uniforms, the manifest expression of confidence on our pimpled faces, proved a guarantee that folk's would drop like flies. Of course, being the "fly" lads and lasses that we were, we knew exactly what to do in such an emergency - drag the sufferer into the nearest boozer (generally, the one outside which they fainted/suffered a heart attack/had a touch of the vapours) and give him/her a jolt of brandy. I failed the intravenous course, and my failure in this regard pleased any number of sufferers, for their brandy was poured by me directly into the mouth and down the throat, creating that "warm glow" in the stomach for which brandy is famous. No such warmth arose in the tum from a "drip" feed. But, I imagine, I digress, so, Walrus, the answer to your question may be NO and YES, YES and NO, but never YES and YES or NO and NO. During our recent move and down-sizing, a down-sizing that led to no loss of jobs (for all that I am missing a pension cheque), I came across the epaulets of my once quite grand St John's Ambulance Brigade shirt of grey, but - absent the beret to tuck under the flap and absent a shirt to reinforce the "tucking" of a beret - I downsized them; in short, the epaulets are no more. So, having wandered a tad off-subject, I shall close by saying that once I - like Noel Coward and Arthur Askey before me - had (I believed) a talent to amuse. The reception given my various contributions to Historic Coventry in general, to this thread in particular, have given me reason to doubt this supposed talent. I shall say no more - FOR NOW!

Hey up, our kid (as once I was wont to say), I recall with some accuracy of memory I believe - those days when the Bargees were given to trailing their kids over hither and yon in search of a bob or two. As you will understand, I would wish my personal history to be pure, cleansed of any notion of tribalism, but - while I played often enough with the children from the barges (usually docked, for a while, at Longford Basin) I am unclean inasmuch as I oft referred to these children as Boatees, called them Boatees, and chanted derisive slogans at them. My situation changed, denying me the opportunity to repeat this behaviour in the Dominion, but I assert now that I behaved at the time as a nasty little Longford landed-tribalist. I noted the handbill/poster reproduction you placed on this thread (and I thank you for as much). I was filled with guilt at my my own childish behaviour. I understand the "know better" intentions of the legislation that put an end to these family enterprises, but was reminded of the old saw: THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS. The "good intentions" - entirely laudable - were the intentions of progressives like me (and, I dare say, like you), but there never seemed to me to be anything in the way of "joined-up" thinking, these decent people always missed the forest for the tree that got in the way. I read with no amount of pleasure the plea (on the poster) of the barge children's Mammy, her extolling the virtues of child labour and such, those efforts that brought a family together, and I confess that there is much to commend what she said. Sadly, I think that she spoke those words when "change and decay in all around (she saw)". To hate her for the life she knew (and trusted) is of no moment, any more than hating the "progressive" nature of the legislation that put them out of business is of moment. The life was what it was, but the legislation ditto. And, of course, for Great Britain of the day, there were international implications. I cannot thank you enough for reminding me of the history of my village - the bad along with the good - the knowledge that graces your every posting, the startling and contemporary photographs of the village that stir my heart and give me cause to celebrate to NOW village over the THEN, without suggestion that the THEN was entirely negative. For you have that rare understanding that people then - as one hopes people now - did/do what they thought was for the best. That it may have/will have turned out differently speaks nothing of the intent of good people. I have not been in the Coach and Horses since 2001, when my son was but twelve (this year he graduated from university) and my sister-in-law - my son's Aunt June - was the licensee/tenant (I do not recall the specifics). My last visit to the Sara's Head was in the 80s when Jean Moore, granddaughter of "Tolly" Stew, the bookmaker/turf accountant, was licensee/tenant. Jean Moore went to Foxford, same year as my first (late) wife. She was a fine young woman when I first knew her. Nothing I have heard/experienced since changes that opinion. Clearly, there is no Sara's Head into which to go, but if June (my sister-in-law) still runs the Coach, then feel free to pop in and say Ray in Toronto sent you, and if the Coach has developed some security system, then tell her my mother's maiden name was Wheatley' of the Bed'orth Wheatleys: specifically, Wooton Street Wheatleys. Thank you, morgana, for what you have contributed - from afar - to my later-life understanding of my birthplace - village and city. And I'll bet a dollar or two that you never would have dismissed me - those many years' since - for my unprepossessing roller-skating equipment. Dollars to donuts, you would have accompanied me around the rink, aslippin' and aslidin'. And is that 20 bus still slick and dirty. Last one home on week-ends eleven-thirty? (A Canadian rhyming-couplet dedicated to morgana, queen of Longford's highways and by-ways.) LongfordLad Dominion of Canada

I think Longfordlad most kids even now are the same un educated in not realising these bargees were bringing their homes coal to keep them warm and other products. If not their mum and dads doing the work it could of been yours or my mum and dad working on the barges . I shall ask who owns the Coach and Horses to see if its your sister in law who still runs it. Here is the Saracens and Coach & Horses Foxford School and that building in Hurst Rd you mentioned. The building side and rear of St Thomas as David H mentioned is St Thomas parish hall. The bricks which the church is built with came from Nuneaton they had two quotes one for the church the other for the spire. B

Parish Hall or otherwise, surely you recall this as the primary school I cited, morgana?