Ironmonger Row

Helen, I keep seeing references on Coventry Digital to the Priory Guest House that was demolished. Do you know where this was at all?

Mary Dormer Harris in her column in the Coventry Herald 1930 says "the Palmers Guest House, north west of Holy Trinity in the present Palmer Lane, was pulled down in 1820. Some of the carvings have been incorporated in the window frames of the Palmers Rest". Apparently MDH was known to refer to the Pilgrims Rest as the Palmers Rest.

Thanks, Anne, though not sure that's the same one - otherwise it would make this the oldest photo I know of! It does state it's on Ironmonger Row though.

There is an article in the Birmingham and Midlands Institute Transactions 1875, Neil, which said it was a half-timbered structure, richly carved, taken down in 1820 and a public house erected in its place called the Pilgrims Rest. A tablet records the erection. This looks like your picture, Neil, but it does not look like the Pilgrims Rest we have pictures of (just reread it and it says "The Pilgrim" was built in its place!). The landlord of The Pilgrims Rest in the 1870's is advertising it as being 6 Ironmonger Row. At one point it was sold and it says also entrance from Palmer Lane.

Yes, the Pilgrim's Rest was one of the buildings referred to as the Priory guest house. Below is a Troughton sketch of the whole thing. Like the pub it was on the corner of Ironmongers and Palmer Lane but it was bigger and extended about as much again into the Bull Ring. See the projecting building just beyond the pub? That's the other end, clad in brick rather than rebuilt and Neil's picture is the back of that. What you see is an internal wall as another building in front of it had just been demolished to expose the very old section.

Awesome! Thanks as ever Ladies!

I'll just throw this into the mix. Make of it what you will, you understand the layout better than me, Helen! Part of an article from the Coventry Herald October 1912, by M A Streetly. It goes on to say that since 1856 the private house (the old guest house) has been divided into 2 houses. In Taunton's History of Coventry there is an engraving of the Old Guest House as it stood in 1819 when Mr Joseph Browett with his wife (on a pillion) ride from Northampton to take up his abode in this house just purchased by him in Ironmonger Row. It is interesting to see though that there were people then that would have liked to preserve historic buildings. He says, "What an opportunity to make the old guest house a museum".

In the previous Troughton drawing you can see what looks like a door into a stable and might be the farrier. All the images I've seen show the original building running from the corner of Palmer Lane to that door. The next building looks Elizabethan brick and windows in the 1819 William Henry Brook image below, and can be seen much modified in many pictures looking down Butcher Row. The whole guest house was cut in half and the Palmer Lane end must have been demolished and a Victorian style two storey 'cottage' was built and turned into a pub. It was on the land of the old building but no longer part of it. Troughton drew the bits of decorated wood salvaged from the demolished section and they were used in the pub windows. The rest is then bricked up and that is still fundamentally part of the guest house. You can see in the photo of the Pilgrim's Rest the bricked up part of the guest house has two doors.

That old Archives photo - talk about 'if a picture could tell a thousand words'!

Too true, Neil. The original copy of that photo wasn't zoomable and the fine details tell more than the overall view. In the William Henry Brooke picture I think I can even see the farrier shoeing a horse. I love it when records and images tie together. Thanks Anne.

So that Archives image would've been the old north side of it then, Helen, facing towards the Hales St area? Any idea what year it might've been? Actually just noted this one - I think it's looking out of that same ornate window you can see mid-right in the earlier photo looking out towards the Hippo no.2.

I like its crypt as well!

Some interesting detail here which includes the still standing Opera House.

Shows nicely how far the remaining building on the Burges/Cross Cheaping was from the real Ironmongers.

An interesting image from Coventry Digital