Aerial views of Coventry

Interesting to see how recently Much Park Street was still lined with some classic buildings, too. Such a shame they had to go - apart from the old gatehouse and the mediaeval ruin, there's nothing nice in that street any more.

There are some decent views of the area from the City Engineers collection. Tantalisingly some of the buildings are just too distant for a good look.

A wonderful recent eBay find - so good, in fact, that I've just had to cheat my own system and devise a way to make it super-large resolution and zoomable. (This might be a feature I can add in the near future, if more of you have very large photos worthy of further detailed scrutiny.) Of some note here is the Opera House in Hales Street and the Canal Offices at the top of Bishop Street, but there are also many other features of much interest. For a photo from around the turn of last century, it has amazing detail !

Absolutely scrummy. The rears of Cook Street and Silver Street for Neil

A brilliant find! Something took my eye which may help to date this photo. My eye was drawn to the low curved wall in the lower half towards to the right. Zooming in shows the words Alexandra and Cocaine. This suggests that a film was being shown, Cocaine 'A decadent, controversial tale of London's seedy underbelly, where an elegant Chinese club host enslaves the weak with white powder' was made in 1922 and the Alexandra cinema had opened in 1917.

I think you could be right, rocksolid! At first I'd thought it must 1906 or earlier, because I couldn't see the Old Hippodrome - but looking closer at the far right-hand-side, and cross-checking with a 1926 map and a photo, I assume it must be the edge of the Hippodrome that we can just about see beyond the small gap to the right of the houses in Hales Street. Without that correlation I would never have been able to guess that it was the side of that theatre we were looking at.

Well done rocksolid, spot on, well spotted, in fact May 1922.

Photos like this contain very rare snippets of the city. An example is the top end of Bishop Street. The original Stag and the Woodman next door don't seem to have been captured in any other photo. In photos looking either way along the road, these two buildings were obscured by the wiggly property line.

Well done, Anne! Despite the statement that there was nothing in it that anyone could object to, I would have thought any film with that name would have to be considered rather racy for the time. I expect the title was chosen deliberately to create publicity. I wonder if it drew in the crowds and were they shocked?

Thats a beaut Rob! I love how you don't have to look that far North to see the sticks! That row on the right ties in nicely with these on CD -

I'm sure we've discussed this building before with its rather French style roof but I can't remember what we confirmed it was?

Talking of Aerial images.....................this must have been very close to November 1940 - the Timothy Whites building is up......

That was Beck's factory. It would originally have been on the edge of the mill pool. From the other side below.

That is an extraordinary shot, wherever did you find it? I would say it's just about the time war was declared. I'm going by new builds in Smithford Street, starting on the corner of Broadgate and working left there is Burton's tailors, Willson's fashions, Eastern's furniture and Dolcis shoes all built late-1930s (Eastern's the latest) then far left just before the corner of Market Street, British Home Stores large white building with horizontal windows, built pre-war. All destroyed on 14 November 1940 of course.

I've seen it a few times. I've a vague feeling it's from German surveillance.