Much Park Street

We've mentioned Franklin's on this thread so adding here. Jenny Pedder added this shot on FB recently of Franklin's staff on MPS taken sometime in the 50's. Anyone know what number they were?

1957 Telephone Directory says 31

Newspaper articles confirm it as 31

In the 1950's I worked at R.E.P. next door to Franklins and that address was no 33. On the other side no 35 was as I remember an old shop belonging to the Gilberts. They must have been there a long time as they were living at 35 when my father installed electricity in the R.E.P. premises in the 1920's. He told of an incident when he and his mate were wiring. He had to take the power from the ground floor to the first floor. The practice was to thump the ceiling with a piece of wood until the man upstairs located the noise. His mate kept shouting that he was close but could not find the right spot. My father was interrupted by Mrs Gilbert tapping the window and she asked him if he would stop banging as it was under their bed and her husband was trying to sleep as he was on nights. They had not realised that the properties, being about 16th century, sometimes overlapped.

I think that Franklins originally occupied 30-32 and most of the courts behind. It spans the large gateway into court 6/Providence Place. In 1940's Kelly's it was at 30 but later it moves to 31. It must have been originally 3 plots. It was already housing manufacturing in 1850 and looks like it might have been intended as a grand house to start with, like Judges Court and Mr Wright's House. While Little Park Street was the street with the wealthy, it looks like in the 1700s the desire for large plots drove the rich towards Much Park Street but almost immediately, a fall in prosperity and the opening up of building plots in the countryside, killed the development of the street. The remaining rich moved out and the large inner city plots became industrial sites, a process that didn't stop until WW2.

My great aunt worked at Franklins and I recognise her on this photograph as I have a copy too.

Hi Kitty, welcome to the forum.

The end of the Brewery buildings (c)Culture Coventry Trust

Never seen inside it before!

Picture of Charles Fred Frapwell with his wife Ellen at their newsagent/stationer on 119 Much Park Street. Copyright notice: Culture Coventry Trust/Coventry Archives. Literally next door to The Greyhound which can be seen on the very left edge at 118 - zoom in for some terrific detail!

There aren't many pictures of the south corner of Much Park Street and the corner of St John's street. This one isn't brilliant but the big building in the middle is the one opposite the Horse and Jockey. The styling on the building is early 1800s I think, although I'm still hazy about exact date ranges for styles. Certainly the Horse and Jockey was a later build (first record 1841) and the styling is different. That south side of Much Park Street is still very limited for images. Both corners had timber buildings within Troughton's era and in keeping with many of Coventry's corner plots the buildings were 2 storey and at least the north building was jettied.

Sad but interesting photo of Much Park Street disappearing. Good detail of the old Hammerton's building, Helen.

Nice one, Neil. I like to see the bones of buildings and even the ghosts of others on a surviving wall. Though I just discovered that Hammerton's had a premises on St Mary Street in the 1880s. I will explore the directories to see if it moved or had dual locations. They'd moved by 1896. They were at number 20 MPS at the same time but not at the building above.

Not sure of the date, but interesting detail in this one of Whitefriars Gatehouse.