City centre shopping precincts

Could be, Ben, although IIRC inside Owen Owen had those narrowing interior columns.

Hmm. I was thinking ground floor of Smiths. Frustratingly I cannot see in the window very well. There's a few Owen Owen images by Richard Sadler on Cov Dig. Time to compare!

The porthole windows are a giveaway! They overlook Ironmonger Row/Square

Great detective work, MR.

Ahh, thankyou both! Hopefully somebody has some images for the Smith's building!

Great to see this pic of Robinson's this morning on FB. I always bought my 'surprise' Valentine's bunches of flowers from there! You could smell the flowers right along the ramp. That spot was a bit of a muggers' paradise at night though! Post copied from topic Old Coventry firms on 3rd Feb 2023 4:02 pm

Nice pic, yes 60's, the Thistle pub was at the far end on the left if I remember.

No, this is the Lower Precinct. The Thistle was at the end of City Arcade

I took these photos of the sculptures around 1973. They are not very clear but indicate the location at the time.

The fountain, one of the favourite meeting places in town those days. Under the elephant was another.

That wouldn't be Dorothy Perkins would it? Another one of my haunts. Thankyou forum members, my memory is on the fast track this evening. I have noticed some of the old ornate lighting appearing in a couple of recent posts and wonder whatever became of them.

I'm pretty certain that it is Dorothy Perkins! The logo changed from the italic font after 1973, probably when the Burton Group, later Arcadia, purchased Dorothy Perkins in 1979.

That side of the precinct was one of the most interesting wasn't it dream time. There were several dress shops along there, I think Richards and wasn't it Worth's a bit more expensive then into Dotty P's for some undees, BHS as a last resort. M&S was a bit more dressy then and more for the oldies. There were several shie shops dotted about as well. C&A was worth looking in butnyou had to be careful as they had lots of the same dresses and you would see someone else wearing it in the Locarno Gosh was it all about 60 years ago !!

I also loved Dorothy Perkins and I was thrilled when one of our moves in London was to a maisonette over a D.P. off the Egdeware Road. One New Year we were having a party and over the noise we could hear quite a racket in the street below. Turns out that some celebrants from another party who were obviously overserved, broke the shop windows and danced down the street with the mannequins! Another time a small gang tried to steal the safe which DP kept in the side window. After breaking the glass they tried to haul it out with a tow rope tied to a car. Then they hit it with sledge hammers and almost knocked it through to the shop next door but by this time the police had arrived. Can't say they didn't try.