Coventry Pubs

Hi again dutchman I've had a thought re the William IV. What I remembered was specifically "King William IV", and I notice on your photo it's just "William IV". Intriguing, especially as the one in your photo isn't the one I remember.... Strange thing, though, memory, isn't it?

Hi again Keith There's a King William Street in Hillfields but no record of any pub by that name except for the one at 65 Spon Street which is nowhere near St John's. The only pubs in the vicinity of St John's after the war were The Newdigate Arms at 11 Hill Street, The George IV and City Arms on opposite sides of Fleet Street and the Rising Sun in Spon Street. If it's any consolation I could visualise most of what you posted just not that bit. The shoe shop across from the present Co-op is still there (Thomas Ager). The road between is officially 'Bablake Street' but I have seen it described elsewhere as West Orchard.

Hi dutchman Strange, isn't it? I can remember what it looked like, maybe I got the location wrong and/or name. The description that I told you, did it ring any bells? And Agers, yes! I'd forgotten the name, yet I can see the shop as if it were yesterday - painted a pale grey, with large stylised name over each window. There was a kerfuffle one Saturday morning when someone parked a prewar Opel Kadet outside Agers. I'd never seen one before - I doubt if many people had - and it was a unique design in having front and rear wings that were identical; you could notionally turn a whole car side around and fit it on the other side. Made production really cheap. I can remember another incident about cars. Reputedly someone parked a Roller in the temporary carpark behind the pre fab shops in Corporation St. When he came back, and drove off, an Austin 7 followed him; he kept thinking "Bit close, that"; when he stopped at the end of Corporation St, someone knocked on his window, and got him out. He'd parked too close, his overriders had gone under the bumper of the Austin, hooked it, and he was towing it. Two or three pedestrians helped him extricate it, but I don't know what they did about it afterwards... and you could imagine the owner of the 7 coming back and finding it gone! Must have been 1958 or 9. Strange the things we remember, isn't it? I had a similar problem with a Citroen BX that I had some years ago. Parked at work, where rows were delineated with plastic chains. Parked, went to the office, came back later and started the car. It pumped itself up, and the front number plate hooked under the chain. I took it with me when I backed out. Quite embarrassing!

Afraid not Keith. I lived in Bond Street between 1959 and 1960 and often played in that area but have no memory of either Fleet Street or the short section of Spon Street between Fleet Street and the Holyhead Road. I do remember visiting one of the pubs with my mother in 1959 in what I've learned since was Fleet Street. It was like crossing a ploughed field. The whole area was a quagmire due to reconstruction work. I wasn't allowed in the licensed area so all I remember of the pub was that it had a huge staircase in an entrance hall where I played with a toy helicopter.

Is this perhaps the pub you were thinking of, the King's Head at the St Patrick's Road end of Little Park Street? Closed in 1959 and demolished to make way for the new road scheme. It was the only post-war pub in central Coventry with "King" in the name. This picture was probably taken in the 1930s so its appearance may changed a lot by the time you saw it.

Hi dutchman No, definitely not. It was set back from the street, like Allwoods shop, had a rendered and painted frontage, cream, with the name across it in 18 inch high letters, dark red letters, as I remember. Two front doors, both up two or three steps. And rather small windows. Can't remember whether it was two or three storey. And there were buildings on either side of it, attached to it. Maybe we'll never know... What we really need is an archive of all the pubs in Coventry in 1950, complete with photos and names!

Hi yet again dutchman Can you remember Fleet St / Smithford St as far back as 1950? (I suppose I'm wondering how our ages compare..) I can remember back to 1949 so far as the city is concerned, and a bit further in one or two flashes. I was 4 in '49, but could read and write at that age, and when my mother stopped to talk to friends, I'd amuse myself by reading out aloud the names over shops, notices in windows and so on. (Which was an effective way to learn more spelling etc - much to the annoyance and not a little jealousy of other kids when I started school!! ) Those years, 49-52/53 left some images in my memory that are as clear as yesterday, yet later years are far less clear. As an aside, I often see "wartime" or early post war (e.g. the last series of Foyle's War) plays on TV, and annoy my wife with "It wasn't like that!" And especially when they have interior sets with nice flowery wallpaper, white paint; nice clean streets, shiny cars. Anything but! Distemper in quite dark colours; graining more often than paintwork, or else mid browns; litter and an oily black film everywhere when it rained, from the coal fires; and mostly tatty old bangers - dull paint and rusty, else polished so much that the black paint had rubbed through to the undercoat in places (usually the curve of the bonnet), not to mention bald tyres and tattered interiors. And all the things that were sold to make cars look a bit better! Remember "Nu-Again", the leather paint, for instance?

I'll have to sketch it scan it and post it, and see if someone recognises it. 30 years ago, my wife worked in the City Architect's department, and would have had access to a lot of photo archives going back to Victorian times. What would help is a time machine, so she can go and have a look!! Thanks anyway.

This diagram from city planning records shows the George IV as the only building in Fleet Street set back from the road. Allwoods is three buildings to the left of it at No 19: John Ashby's "The Character of Coventry" is as close to that as we could wish for at present. It does not however include clubs which are often mistaken for pubs.

Afraid not Keith. I was born in 1954 and didn't settle in England until around 1957 or 1958. I too resent television's reinterpretation of modern history. Few ordinary people owned cars of any kind, it was mostly tradesmen and professionals. If they did own one it was likely to be a pre-war model which they patched-up themselves. A friend's father for example owned a Morris 8. That was followed by a Ford Popular which looked almost as old but wasn't. They most certainly couldn't afford a "new" car of any kind!

Keith, I have been following this post with interest, as I asked about this pub some time back. Would this pub be roughly in line with TJ Hughes (google street map) only further back, as this is where i imagine the pub would be. The pub was similar to the the George, but larger I think. They could have built the large tower at the bottom of the Precinct, on the site where it stood. Dutchman has posted some excellent photos on here, so there is hope yet, this if one exists of this pub, he will find one. I can remember the the old Rover works still being there while they was building the new circular market. Anthony Jacksons became Tescos, just behind the kiddies ride. I also remember the Sherbourne being visible from the scrapyards in Moat St, the Butts area, and going under Queen Victoria Road. We climbed in once and walked behind the hoardings, through to the Rex market via some underground culverts, then onto Palmer Lane. The Rex market was roughly where Smithford Way was built. Someone mentioned Agers shoe shop. This was where my wife first started work in 1962.

Already have posted it in the other thread Adrian. It was closer to C&A than T.J.Hughes and was called the City Arms: Their license was moved to a new pub of the same name in Smithford Way in 1959.

Thanks Dutchman, I don't think it's the City Arms. It's too far to the right. I'm more inclined to think now it is the George, maybe after they cleared the building in front. It's over 50 years now, and it's easy for one's memory to play tricks. But Keith's description sounded so right. My memory tells me the Sherbourne crossed the road from the right side of Croft Road, then was running alongside Queen Victoria Road, disappearing behind some hoarding and then there was this pub, but looking at your map. it seems I'm wrong Thanks again.

Hi Adrian, dutchman Adrian I'm glad someone else remembers the pub, I was beginning to think I'd imagined it! I don't know what the date of the map is/was, but the line of Fleet St was nothing like that in 1950; it had quite a large radius corner, so I would deduce that the shops to the west of the George were demolished, and something else put there, further back from the road. I also think the pavement must have been widened at the same time, so creating a wide space in front of Allwoods (I'd judge it about 20 feet); I'm absolutely certain that it was wide in front of Allwoods, because my mother, taking me with her, shopped there at least once a week (don't forget people didn't have fridges, and had to). Smithford St was cobbled up towards Woolworth's, but was tarmac in front of Allwoods, with a few cobbles (granite setts) showing through the tarmac. I would swear that the enigma pub had "King William IV" across the front; the one much further along Spon St only ever had "William IV" in my recollection - and pubs named after kings were common anyway. Also, the William was an M&B pub, and the KW wasn't - see below. I looked at the popular photo of Fleet St showing mostly the other side from in front of St John's church, and there was a hotel on the corner with like a shop front - Baker's Temperance Hotel. That most definitely wasn't there in 1950, not the shops just visible to the left of it (i.e. round towards Smithford St.) I think, trying to recall in better detail, the appearance of the pub that I knew as KWIV and I think it wasn't very old, maybe 1920s. The Fleet St / Spon St corner could also have been moved back and made sweeping to allow trams to turn up Smithford St, which may well equate to a date of the 1920s. The city centre was beginning to have quite a few alterations by the late 20s, as cars began to proliferate, in order to ease traffic flow, and alterations could well have been done at that time - indeed, I think then - or just a few years later - was when the traffic islands were put in in front of St John's church, and also at Holyhead Road/Spon St junction. That would have necessitated moving the line of the corner well back, creating a sweeping bend, and the widened pavements could have been used to allow for later development of the road system as traffic continued to increase. I'd bet that Allwoods store was rebuilt or remodelled at that time. Incidentally, I was racking my brains to remember the brewery signs on the front of the enigma pub, and I think they were Ind Coope, which would figure, as the colour scheme of the pub was the same as other Ind Coope houses, e.g. the one in Earlsdon St (The Royal Oak, was it?) Going back to Allwoods, they had a triple-fronted store in Earlsdon, almost exactly the same as the one in Fleet St (coffee roaster/grinder included!) and that was set behind a wide pavement too. The style was almost exactly the same as the in town store, and I'd bet the Earlsdon store was 1920s/30s, as it looked younger than a lot of the other shops in Earsldon at that time. And there were definitely no triple-fronted ones built when Earlsdon was created in the 1840s or 50s. Am I making sense, folks?