Bayley Lane

Excellent Neil. The views of Earl Street at the end are some of the few out there, plus it's possible to see the end of the left side and gather that the tall building on the right wasn't the end of the road. I did try to find the two Herbert versions of the end of Bayley Lane but the one I found wasn't very good and I couldn't locate the other. The search function.... A lot of the images it threw up had nothing to do with Bayley Lane.

My lovely friend (and distant relative!) Rosemary Jerrard (aka coventry49) sent this to me and asked me to add it on the forum. It's a photograph of a painting of Bayley Lane and the old cottage where her 3x great grandfather lived for over 40 years as the Bailiff of Coventry. It was painted in 1936 by a relative on her father's side. He was born in 1920 and only died a few years ago. He would have only been 16 when he painted it. He went to the old Art College near the Fire Station.

Neil, I have another painting of Bayley Lane from a slightly different perspective. It was painted by a friend's father, Sid Shelton, in the late 1960's. Pete and I often took photos around the city centre for his father to research the historical buildings from old maps etc., and then he painted the scene without the modern buildings. I have included a shot of a painting from the opposite end of Bayley Lane for interest.

Great pictures, but from my perspective, in the top picture there are three new buildings and a cut and shut. The County Court, the Chapel and the one behind the timber building were 'new' and the fancy carved end of the timber building is salvage from the building that was next door.

I have a vague memory that they were intended to represent pre-WW2, about 1930! I don't know how that would fit in with the modern buildings, but I think the painter, Sid Shelton, was born before 1910 and that he was working in the electrical manufacturing industry during WW2 (probably at GEC).

Those views work for the 1930s. For a view from 1819 you can see where the fancy woodwork came from. One of my favourite images. Of note, it refers to the building on the left as the buttery of the White Horse Inn, which suggests that the tall roof peeking over the front building was the inn. The roadway between that and the Hall entered into White Horse Yard, which is marked on the 1749 map but the actual inn could have referred to any one of a number of buildings. The buttery pins it down.

Thanks, Helen, this is all fascinating insights into the paintings. Great!

Another lovely shot of Bayley Lane

This and a couple of others are back to front. I'll add some info later on this evening.

This could go in a few topics. RAF, 1948.

Always great to see that section west of the Golden Cross pre-war -

Neil, seeing your latest picture above I immediately thought 'if only those walls could talk'.

Helen, how come you always find the right words for everything. You can take me out of Coventry but you can't take Coventry out of me. Have a nice day.

Adding here as at the time this image is listed as being from (1860) - Bayley Lane ran all the way up to the junction with Derby Lane. Cliff B found this one (apols if this is a recent ebay list Rob!) Terrific shot for me mainly because of the capture and detail of that section on the left. Fab clarity as well. It's an image by Francis Bedford apparently.