Little Palace Yard

I love old Cov - and this forum

Me too

At the risk of placing in the wrong thread - whilst looking in to this subject I found this unusual aspect of Little Park Street. Most images I have seen are taken looking north towards the Council House. This one is looking south from High Street/Earl Street junction. What suprised me was how narrow it appears.

The building sticking out on the left in the first picture is probably slightly further into the pavement than the original building because often when they faced buildings they took the jetted first floor down to street level. In other cases or where there was a third tier they chopped off the overhang. The widening of the road as you come towards the camera, was relatively new (some time between 1850 and 1890) and several 2 storey buildings fronted onto Earl Street too.

Excellent find NY! I am thinking the Umbrella Club may be on the other side of that building sticking out?

Yes it is, opposite the junction with Cow Lane:

Do you happen to know what the empty space is, something, maybe the sticking out building, bombed out? If it was I wonder if the Umbrella bought it as a garden?

Just to confirm comments at the start of this thread - LPY is Court No.20 show here:

It was a private house, set back from the road and boarded-up awaiting demolition when this picture was taken: http://coventryartsumbrella.blogspot.co.uk/

Apologies if I have hijacked this thread as another Yardley family one but as you may have gathered I've been somewhat delighted to have not only found information about LPY but also first hand accounts about relations living there and actual photos! Rosemary and I have a family connection and I am hoping she will allow me to share some personal anecdotes about her visits to the Yard soon. In the meantime I have finally been able to work out the locations where my dad's uncle and his family lived. I was slightly thrown at first by confusing Little Palace Yard with Palace Yard and mixing views up from historical photos. Anyway as per my earlier comments - this is LPY from above in 1946: To get some perspective - the building in the top left is Middlemores saddlemakers - discussed on here before. Shown here - the buildings to the left are LPY: As you can see from the first photo there was a series of buildings between the two which were badly damaged during the war - they were subsequently bulldozed and the domed temporary building between the two went up. This shot is taken with the photographer standing besides the domed structure looking directly at the side of LPY and uncle Ray's: The back of this together with Middlemores rear is seen here from this shot which is more than likely taken from uncle Ray's house! Here's another view of Middlemores rear to prove - you can see the Telecoms building through the 'archway': The red crossed building on the first photo is 'our' Yardleys' house. The view west from within LPY towards Little Park Street itself is seen here in a later date - around late 1950's with dad's disabled cousin Trevor sitting under the archway there. The upper part of the archway Yard building has now gone - presumably following war damage and has been altered. If you now turn around from that spot and look east down the Yard you would have seen this: The Courts extended down along the Yard - the Yardleys were in the one to the right - Rosemary even thinks that the bicycle in that actual photo belonged to dad's aunt Wyn! Sorry for going on but I have found this all amazing to see and read about!

Glad you're finding useful stuff Neil. You missed c01898, The dark oblong on the right that photo is the archway to the front, I think. The left hand side of the picture is your wing. Followed by c01953, which was the end of that wing and c01954 which is the end wall. The top of which you can see in the aerial photo. I don't know for sure that I've placed them correctly but those are the conclusions I came to. The last photo you posted shows the arch looking towards the garden, you can see the posts of the walkway. You can't see any further because there's a new building.

Absolutely no apologies necessary, Neil - fantastic stories and photos about the history of Coventry

Great work NY

Thanks to Rosemary on here for allowing me to share this: Mods - I've increased the image so to enable readers to see the wording - decrease as required etc. This is the Telegraph piece from August 1961 detailing the demoltion of LPY. It even mentions Wyn Yardley - as previously mentioned here who was my dad's aunt who lived there and was made to move out. It seems even then they realised that they were losing a piece of Coventry's heritage - though obviously not enough to prevent it happening.

Just to picture the area - following my earlier map - I had not realised the Bird in Hand pub was so near to LPY - and here it is