West Orchard

Hi Neil. I think that this is looking roughly south. The building being hosed is the Victoria works. The building on the right is the back/side of the Rex cinema? The river Sherbourne is beyond the low wall. Corporation Street would have been behind the photographer. View on Britain From Above Firemen roughly where the marker is on this map

Brill, as ever, Helen I see it now. So not really West Orchard then. I'll pass that on to the FB page it was posted and credit you as always. Victoria Mills is puzzling me - was it originally part of the Meteor Works then or is that another error? I know it was run by James Hart who built Copsewood Grange. Can't recall if I've shared this one before of it coming down.

It was on the West Orchard side of the river so I guess that technically it was West Orchard. It has another word beginning with m in brackets in 1937 but it's not meteor and may be what they were making rather than a business title. There were a lot of factories in that area and they seem to have changed hands, so it may have been Meteor at some point but I doubt it was by the time the photo was taken. See maps, stepping forwards and back. The Meteor Works was further west than where the Rex was built. The Rex and the place where the firemen were was the Vulcan works. By 1905 the Meteor Works had become the Simplex Works. By 1914 it was the Globe Works and the Victoria Works was the Centaur Works but was back called Victoria Works again by 1937. By 1950 is was an engineering works whereas it started out as a ribbon factory. Only the Lion iron foundry to the south was consistent through the maps until it was demolished. I find images of old factories being demolished a bit sad.

Thanks again Helen - no wonder I was confused!

NeilsYard Your photo, Mattersons of West Orchard.

Kaga, what did they make?

Helen, They were one of the biggest firms in Coventry, they had several premises, est.1766. They ran from two houses inside West Orchard on the north side. They had a large foundry, made everything from fancy railings, gates, hobs, fireplaces and agricultural implements, the biggest seller of baths, tractors. If you have the book Coventry's Blitz there's photo's of their damage.

Matterson, Huxley & Watson whose premises as a shop was in Hales Street, next to the Opera House, had a plough as an example of their products above the entrance, which remained there until the business closed down. See Neil's post 140 of Hales St (1992) which has the red brick building but alas the plough already gone.

They have their own thread on the forum

Duh! Of course. Thanks. I've got a mental hole where Matterson's drops every time I read the name. Maybe it's because it's all over the city and in 'new' buildings?

Thanks to the newspaper archives again, the Victoria factory was described as 80 ft high with 5 flats or shops, 11 skylights, 140 windows and 250 powered steam looms. In 1915 Odell's were selling the old Centaur Factory in West Orchard and the Burges, called the Victoria & Exchange works, 40,000 sq ft. The sale of important manufacturing works was also a ribbon mill until the occupation of the Centaur Co. In 1933 James Hart, who I think must be the original James Hart's son, was charged with falsifying accounts of Hart and Co. The company Hart & Co began in the Raglan Works before moving to the Victoria factory. A bit confused. Is this Centaur factory the bicycle works that became Rover?

It looks like it was only a car factory for at most a year - 1901. Rover created the New Meteor Works in the Bull Yard/Garfield Road 1904-1930.