Coventry Hotels

Good point. Not only did it lose its business infrastructure, but also entertainment infrastructure. There is also the rise of the low cost hotels such as Premier Inn, who offer decent quality hotels for low prices, and newer places such as the Hilton. Some of these older businesses just haven't adapted. I once had some family members visit and stay in the 'Coventry Hill Hotel'. It was absolutely disgusting. The building needs to be condemned. There were actually gaps between the window frames and brickwork!

I recall the wine waiter at Allesley having a side line making serious money at Christmas. LOTS of staff parties meant LOTS of customers paying cash for their wine, so after each lunch session, he'd go to the wine supplier, Bablakes, and brought the same wine for a fraction of the menu price, and simply replace it, so when management did their stock count every night, his stock and takings would tally up. He used to pull about £40 a day from that caper, one of the old fashioned 'perks of the job'. He was NEVER greedy, just at Christmas.

I worked for The Allesley for six months in 1972. At the time the hotel was owned by Coventry's Masonic Lodges. They employed a management team whose idea was to turn it into a five star hotel and restaurant. We had a French chef and a superb menu, but the customers just did not come. Whether it was just too expensive, or did not suit Coventrian tastes is a matter of conjecture, but, at times, members of staff outnumbered the number of customers in both the hotel and restaurant. The only times we were busy, was when there was a lodge meeting. Financially, it was a disaster, but the staff ate well! With such a lack of custom it was only a matter of time before the manager was replaced, the hotel put up for sale, and yours truly went back to engineering. One of the highlights was an old Triumph Mayflower that was parked in the car park and belonged to a staff member. I don't think it moved very far and, when the hotel was sold, it disappeared.

Today's Coventry Telegraph reports that the Leofric (Travelodge) is to be converted into student flats

Just beat me to the comment MR, another nail in the City Centre coffin. Regards.

Not *really*. There two new Premier Inn Hotels in the city centre, plus the Ramada and then plans for more hotels as part of the Fargo development. I don't imagine the access problems helped much - making a hotel virtually inaccessible is not going to help business!

Merrick Lodge used to be our social club in the '60's (EMEB next door) had many an enjoyable 1/2 a shandy and a bag of crisps and a game of bar billiards at lunch time. My daughter tried to book a meal last year to take my mum who is in the care home next door and they said they did not do meals in the week!

I believe he was an apprenticed TV/Radio Engineer - dad used to work with him and always used to remind us when we went to functions at the Berkeley Grill (Fred's first hotel) and then later the Royal Court and Allesley.

You have to remember back then when these hotels were in their heyday, that pubs only sold beer and bar snacks. This must have took a large portion of the income away when pubs started meals and carveries.

Fred was one of my dad's pals, and claimed that Fred started with a batch bar in Spon End. Fred also owned a hotel in Jersey - I forget which - I know he was mightily annoyed when they wouldn't grant him resident status,

Fred did indeed start with a batch bar in Spon Street, catering for bus drivers and conductors. When he sold his two hotels, Allesley and Royal Court, he 'retired' to Jersey, but soon became bored and returned a few years later.

Fred Kilpatrick, I remember him well, from his early days at the Berkeley Hotel and the Royal Court, a very volatile man from my recollection, he always wanted his pound of flesh and thinking about it that was not such a bad thing, so many of us now just accept shoddy workmanship, he would always get his work done his way. For many years I organised the GPO engineers' dinner dance at the Royal Court and never had a bad dinner, he would always come into the dance area and introduce himself, always very smart. The band we used at the time every year was "The Barry James Trio", father and two sons, the manager was the mother, great band. Although we had our dance at the Royal Court he did not like GPO or any big establishments and I think his pet hate was the planning dept. Although he did not like the GPO/ Post Office Telephones because at the time they had the monopoly on all telephone systems (except Hull) he seemed to be ok with us telephone engineers. Talk about bad timing, Fred could not wait to purchase a new phone system from a private company when the government introduced de-privatisation and anyone could choose where to purchase a phone system. This is the bad timing bit. I was sent to the Allesley Hotel to install a private wire system (no internet in them days) so he could communicate with the Royal Court this circuit had to be connected to his newly purchased switchboard which was also being installed by a company called "Tannoy". Fred took great delight in rubbing ours noses in it, he loved it, he ripped GPO to bits, unfortunately the company went bust that same week and Post Office Telephones were invited to complete the installation. It's a funny thing, we never saw Fred again during the installation, I wonder why? Nice one Fred, fond memories. Colin.