Barras Lane

The video link below shows the same view as the photo linked above (3.07mins in and then another shot which has a name on the wall but the angle should confirm the site of the photo, this shot is 5.16mins in). The whole video is brilliant and needs someone on here to identify some of the buildings and streets. I am having trouble linking this particular site on here, I have to put the whole page of videos on, it's the third one down. The King in Coventry

This is almost certainly the corner of Barras Lane and Coundon Road - the buildings remain, albeit restored - if you look at that corner on Google Street View below you will be able to confirm this

Thanks for that MR, please have a look at the video when convenient, there's loads to be identified

Great spot Red!

Here are the two clips from the film as mentioned earlier The second one is clearly Coundon Road and here's a modern image Clearly the image under discussion is most definitely at the corner of Barras Lane and Coundon Road

I agree. The trees in the distance up Coundon Road look to be at the entrance to Bablake. The houses do look to have been largely or entirely rebuilt after the bombing.

When the video is actually running, you can see a street sign on the second shot, on the stone wall by the women, it's a bit blurry though.

Does anyone remember who the rabbi was at the synagogue in Barras Lane about 1960-1970, also the caretaker?

You may be interested to know that the founders of the Triumph cycle / motor cycle / car company, Siegfreid Bettmann and Moritz Shultz both worshipped there when they first came to Coventry. They lodged in the street. Mods note : Bettmann now added to list of "Famous Coventrians"

Can anyone tell me the name of the terrace of houses opposite the Synagogue in Barras Lane please? The name plate high up on the first house in the Terrace has weathered and cannot be read. The word 'Terrace' is clear enough but the first word is indecipherable. The couple of people I asked who lived in the row didn't know. And the agent selling one of the houses couldn't help. Neither could the student letting agancy which deals with a couple of the properties!!! So .... help please.

"Rothesay Terrace"

Thanks very much for that Dutchman

Just reviving this one - I'm around Barras Lane a lot picking my eldest up from Bablake. Just why are there so many sandstone-type walls around that area? The whole section down through Abbotts Lane seems to be pretty barren for all the time I have known it. But am I right in saying pre-ring road it was a fairly 'main' route in to town at the time?

I used to work for West Midlands Gas Board in the late fifties, I remember cycling to work down Foleshill Road and Leicester Causeway and going straight over where the policeman stood at the top of Bishop Street. The road would then carry on to Abbotts Lane, on the right was a warehouse which was used by the Co-op, this would be where Wickes is now. Gas Sreet was on the left probably where the Radford Road Junction is now. You could have turned left at the policeman into Bishop Street and into the city centre or right to Radford Road. Alan H

Hill Street was indeed a main and busy route into town before the construction of the ring road cut it into two. Although narrow it linked the Barras Lane/Coundon Road/Abbots Lane junction to Corporation Street. I well remember a few delays if two buses on the 5/5A route had to negotiate the narrower sections of the road at the same time. ref the sandstone walls in the area..... I've always linked these - rightly or wrongly - to the construction of the Coventry to Nuneaton railway, especially Spon End viaduct, obviously known to the majority of us as 'Spon End arches'. When originally built it had 28 arches, constructed of sandstone. I have always understood this sandstone to have come from 'Conduit Meadows'. Where exactly was this? There are references to 'Conduit Meadows' on maps as being in what we know as the Hillfields/Harnall Lane areas.Is this where a local supply of sandstone was obtained that was used in the construction of Spon End arches; the Coundon Road station building and surrounding retaining walls; and those around what we now know as Barras Lane? Or was this just co-incidental? Whilst mentioning Spon End arches - seven years after the line was originally opened, a lot of the sandstone arches collapsed. It took around two and a half years to rebuild using a mix of the original sandstone blocks and the more modern blue brick. Take a close look at the arches themselves and the Holyhead Road bridge. The number of arches was also reduced as the earthen embankments at each end of the viaduct were extended. When the line reopened in 1860, who could have foreseen the length and weight of the heavy freight trains that now pass over them, albeit with a 25mph speed restriction over the arches themselves.