Bishop Street

Are they laying the cobblestones or taking them up?

Nice one Neil. Anne, I know what you mean but I can't think they were putting cobbles down post war. I think what you can see is early tarmac road surfacing, where they didn't cone off a road for six months. They'd just take up what cobbles they could resurface in the same day, so that when they stopped, the road was still useable. Freaky.

Maybe they're removing the tram tracks?

Definitely before 1940 - before, they used a tarmac spray. There's little sign of tram lines, although the trams ran during the war. When they built the new Tusses Bridge, 1936, steamroller Bill gave us rides on his steamroller, it seemed out of this world. I would suggest laying stones, otherwise no need for them to be in handcart.

There was a toll bar at the top of Bishop Street, by the navigation office (the house facing down Bishop Street) and people would stand there to see the coaches race in and turn round in the old Broadgate. There was a ditty in those days: Navigation office, rising On four pillars, how surprising. There was another one about the growth of the city: What wonders every day we see, sirs In the streets of Coventry, sirs New roads, new lanes, new yards, new courts, sirs With new buildings, of all sorts, sirs When hedges, ditches, ponds of water Now there's nothing but bricks and mortar They will extend I do suppose till Coventry will reach to Foleshill. Coventry Canal was first called "Navigation".

Hi Kaga, very interesting. I was told that on the Stoney Stanton Road, Coventry stopped at the Navigation bridge, where the A444 large island is now. It then became Bell Green. As you already know, there was the public house, The Navigation, adjacent Bridge Street.

I'm happy to be corrected but aren't there too few buildings for it to be before the war? I know that it's hard to tell on some streets with the amount of planned demolition in the 1930s.

Yes Heathite, around 1930 you didn't consider you were in Coventry until you crossed Navigation bridge. There was another Navigation pub between Bedworth and Bulkington, they were similar in every respect, location, build, etc. Helen F, the condition of the house across the top of Bishop St says it for me, but I'm mighty puzzled about no tramway. I just wonder, Annewiggy posted a photo of tram lines being repaired in the Burges, 1922 - wonder if they crossed into Bishop St at the same time.

Picture looking along Bishop Street from the north. Taken 30/04/2019

A view of Bishop Street in 1951 (a nice old Standard Vanguard car there too!).

My leather school satchel came from there and a lovely little vanity case later. We regularly caught a bus from right outside the shop but I can't remember where it took us.

I think this is a still from a wartime/post-war film, but it shows nicely the lovely buildings that survived the incendiaries.