Tower Street

My grandfather, William Pullen, had a bakery at 18 Tower St before the war which was destroyed in the blitz (Tower St then ran north-south). It was across an alley from the Beehive pub and roughly opposite the Hope & Anchor, but I can't find any photos of that group of streets to show me what the bakery might have looked like or, even better, of the bakery itself. Can anyone point me in the direction of any, please?

Hi Dave, I tried looking on the Britain from Above© Website, couldn't see Tower Street (perhaps another forum member can): Looked at: aerial photo 1 aerial photo 2 aerial photo 3 aerial photo 4 You may need to make an account to zoom in. To be honest, I'm confusing myself now as I can't orient myself in relation to the old pre-war road system. Also, I suspect that Tower Street might just be out of shot Hopefully someone here can spot it @RobOrland's map on the PubHistory.HistoricCoventry page for the Beehive Pub might help to align yourself. I've included Rob's 1851 Street map below (not exactly 1930's but best I could find to hand). The Star denotes the rough location of the Beehive Pub.

Hi Dave, welcome to the forum Garlands Joke Shop is spot on, it's not an area well covered by images. The image below is looking through Henry Street at the corner of Tower Street. There may well be other images from the bombing at the Herbert Gallery history archive But I'll be honest, I've never looked. Of Garlands' links this is the best, and yes a free login will allow you to zoom in. Tower Street is near the bottom on the right hand third. The photo is looking south eastish. Another one to look at is here where Tower Street is in the bottom left corner. You can see that parts had already been demolished before the war. These buildings dated to the early 1800s. They started building along Leicester Street and then moved south, filling in Tower Street, Swan Street and Brewery Street. They were already demolishing Leicester Street before 1931, though that area had particularly small and unhealthy properties. I'll have a look to see if the rest of Tower Street appears in the slum clearance records.

Dave, If you look at Aerial Image 1, the ref on the bottom margin is EPW053108, you can clearly see Swanswell Pool. Unless I'm mistaken, the island on Swanswell Pool is located marginally to the west of north, or if you prefer to use the compass points NNW, which deems the image to be looking southwards.

Well done Helen and Mike, I was getting tied up in knots trying to work out where things were hahahaha Although now that I've seen Rob's overlay map I wish I'd used that last night now I miss the good old days when I could search old planning records before GDPR spoiled it, it was so useful for this kind of thing. The Hope and Anchor Pub closed in 1904/5 and after was a private dwelling, was your Grandfather's bakery prior to this?

Using Rob's Old maps page you can get a reasonable look at the street plan of Tower Street properties. 1926: 1937: If you overlay the two maps, there's a large area that appears to have been removed in the decade between the two maps. Assumedly to extend/ widen Leicester Street??? I guess industrialisation meant Victorian Roads were no longer fit for the increased traffic???

Hello Your contributions to our forum are fabulous Garlands Joke Shop. Over a long period of time. Thank you so much.

Hi Garlands. I'm sure that widening the roads was a big part of the justification for demolition but the state of the buildings was another. Some of the properties were very small and back to back with other, equally small neighbours. Initially they tried to improve the places by knocking back to backs into one to give the properties a through draught but the basic fabric of the buildings was shocking. This area was one of the first to be built on, once cities with commoner rights were freed from the constrictions. They weren't very different from the properties that had been squeezed into the courts and yards within the boundaries of the old city. The width of some of the roads was amazing though. Not much wider than the later pavements. Great map comparison you've done

"Hi Helen, oh my goodness, those "houses" sound awful (they'd probably turn them into student accommodation these days Big grin); I thought the munitions cottages sounded bad. Thanks That makes sense, I just assumed it was a road widening thing. Wow shocking conditions." In response to Garlands Joke Shop reply above {for some reason I don't seem to be able to quote }, because so much time has passed by and so much progress and change in tis many forms has followed on, it becomes so easy to forget how life really was back then. Probably a good reminder how things were would be one of the many films by Ken Loach, starting with "Cathy Come Home". Another TV series that chronicles how harsh times were post war, is "Call The Midwife", based on midwife Jennifer Worth's memories of her work as a nurse and midwife in 1950's london's East End.

In reply to the last to posts (Mike59 and Garland's Joke Shop), Couldn't agree more. Definitions of 'poverty' have certainly changed since I grew up (1950s/1960s). Back-to-back houses were still very common with outside lavatories, no hot running water etc certainly no central heating (do you remember frost on the inside of windows in winter?). Conditions that sound almost primitive by today's standards. Cathy Come Home was a real eye-opener back in the 1960s.

I remember a flat we rented in Croxley Green in Hertfordshire in the late '60's where we had ice on the inside of the windows. We used the electric oven as a heater when we had the shillings. Also a bread box to prop up the bed where the leg was missing.