Spon Street

Picture number two, a continuation of Spon Street 1935. More upon request, but please, not toooooo many.

Thanks Heathite. It confirms that he was at 14/15 in 1935 but at some other point he must have been at 17 for the image is most probably that building. It might be earlier or later but he must have moved.

On another thread, MisterD-Di mentioned the recent closure of an Asian restaurant, "Court 6", 16 Spon Street This is one of the "relocated" old buildings, formerly located elsewhere in Spon Street, as will be seen from the images below

An excellent early Spon Street image looking West towards the Waterworks. I especially liked it as it ties in with the very early wet negative image we saw a while ago discovered by Tony Richards - I'm sure thats the same lamp-post looking east!

Not quite Neil, there are a few buildings between the building on the far left of the second photo and the far right of the first, including the original location of Court 9. I do recon the photos were taken very close in time. There is another photo in the library c01034, looking the towards Spon End but slightly closer to Crow Lane than the second photo. It shows the shadow of that lamp post. Those three photos give a wonderful group of Spon Street buildings not recorded anywhere else.

Thanks Helen - I see that now. Those wet negatives from Tony are still amazing aren't they. Makes you wonder how many more undiscovered hidden gems are out there. They must be some of the earliest photographic images of old Cov

Thank you Neil for posting what you find. I'd got a copy of the one looking towards Spon End but when I went back to link to it, it had gone. Yes, I itch to dig out some more gems. Those three indicate that someone was photographing the less photogenic areas of the city in 1868/9 or thereabout. They show stuff that was demolished to make way for new, bigger buildings like Spon End School and the Crow Lane factory buildings. There was a building surge in the city as people moved out to the new suburbs. There are a few areas of the city that I still think may turn up that might be useful. I'll update the photos needed thread.

I have just been browsing and came across this post of Janey's asking about Mr Beasley's albums. I have mentioned in previous posts that I bought a box of Coventry stuff from Stan Beasley several years ago. In it were several albums of pictures which are probably some that you refer to. Stan worked along side my mum in the Myton Charity shop when it was by the Co-op that was pulled down to build Ikea. They then moved to Trinity Street. He also used to make pictures out of postage stamps. He lived in Bonds Hospital. I have from time to time posted some of these pictures on here. Quite a lot of them were from existing papers or books. There are quite a lot that look like original glossy photos so I don't know if he took these himself. I think he used to give talks about old Coventry. All in all it was a very interesting collection and I have tried to share it where I can.

I've been looking through the old family photos and records and found this excerpt from the Telegraph, from some years ago, showing the pupils of Spon Street School in around 1930. My Dad is the lad in the back row far left. I also found this photo of the children at a party from about the same time. The photo is annotated "Hertford Place and Dalton Square". My Dad's elder sister, Beattie, is the girl in the pale dress at the back, third from the left. Auntie Beattie is mentioned elsewhere in this forum as for many years she was the Cafe Manageress at Woolies in the Precinct.

Re Spon Street numbers 158 to 162, pictures in the Cov Library collection no 4742 show a Lucas Agent RJ Taberer, I remember going there in the 60's to buy Lucas car spares, with the workshop and stores up through the court entrance, the question is, where would this be now?

The building or the business? The building was demolished and replaced by the 3 storey jettied building from Much Park Street (163). It's hard to recognise the half timbered buildings to the left of 163 because they have been restored to the medieval style, which doesn't look much like the pre restoration appearance.

Are these the buildings you are referring to ? Mum had a clipping of an article from the telegraph as she worked in a Warwick Wines which I think was the building on the right. The article says this is 159-162

Thanks HelenF, what did happen to the business?

There is a RJ Taberer still trading at Herald Way. Don't know in what capacity