Tramway Cottages, Broad Street

Hi JVB A long time before Northampton & Hampton in Arden clay was being used for making bricks, that area of Coventry was one huge clay extraction site. Even the original name for Broad St, was Brick Kiln Lane. Just as for mining, tramways were laid wherever huge quantities of stuff needed moving. The name Jetty often refers to a "Wharf", where stuff would be loaded or off-loaded. Horse drawn wagons would have been the most convenient method of transit. One of the last huge kilns was on the site of the recently demolished Foleshill swimming baths. That is how far this clay extraction went, going back 300yrs. Brick kilns require labour associated with heat, which is probably why so many engineering foundries ended up in that area in the recent past. Only my thoughts on this. A resident that lived in St Pauls Rd, the late Dr Bacon, discovered a rail in his garden during the fifties. Quote from Warwickshire history volume 8. "There was a brick-kiln in Foleshill in 1775, (fn. 225) and brick works were established at several sites during the 19th century". On-line History.

Here's a link to Foleshill St Pauls Baptisms 1879-1904. If you search with the 'find' utility, it will show an entry for Tramway Cottages.

Hello Philip, excuse me butting in but an elderly local resident told me that Broad Street was called Brick Kiln Lane. All that you suggest sounds very credible. So if you don't mind the appropriate pun, I reckon you're 'right on track'.

Hi Heathite I am so enjoying this topic. I was off track with the identity of the "Tramway cottages" to start with, but with so many memories flooding back. One of my ancestors was a sand-blower by trade, so I wanted to find out about that. That in turn brought me into both the clay & foundry industries of the past in that area. It was completing that research that first brought me on to this web-site. I have so enjoyed your posts. Brill in fact.

Thank you for that Philip. One more piece of information from an elderly lady, she said that Station Street was called 'Carpenters Row'. I think she meant Station Street West although I have no idea myself. I didn't know her but she volunteered the information when we were talking about Brick Kiln Lane. I wonder if anyone else knows? And on the 1890's maps, Brick Kiln Lane is marked as such. I know Gulson Road was named the same but it wouldn't be a first would it?

Hi again, If you ever walk around Foleshill Parish church, St Pauls, try counting the number of Carpenter tomb stones. Carpenters had their fingers in so many pies around Foleshill. They even had a kind of departmental store near to the current Lloyds Bank right up until the seventies.

My guess is that the cottages were used by workers constructing the orginal tramway in the early 1880s or the electrification of the system in the early 1890s. Both would have involved a storage area somewhere nearby for the trackway, traction poles and so on before the establishment of the depot on the Foleshill Road.

My guess is that Courtaulds had some sort of its own tram turn around, could this not have been something to do with it or workers of the tram system at Courtaulds?

There were at least 4 brickworks between the Slough and the Oxford Canal to my knowledge, so the area was swarming in them, why they needed so many I have no idea, unless the 'pits' used a lot, coal and clay? Is this a new topic?

Hi Kaga, The tram system that went into the Courtaulds site, was part of the municipal Foleshill tramway & did so off the Foleshill Rd, adjacent to the canal bridge & building. That was 1900 era, whereas the tramway cottages were at least a hundred years prior. It was the eighteenth & nineteenth century expansion of the towns & cities that required so much building materials, hence such a demand for building bricks. The marl clays around Coventry were perfect for making bricks, until it ran out. Hope that helps.

The church in Broad Street.

Mods, when I go to the search button above the post, I fail to find the topic as I am not aware of its wording, example I tried to find the tram picture of the tram outside Courtaulds? I'm aware of the topic 'you know when your getting old', but please bear with me. Thanks Kaga. NormK, I think the house I was after is the right hand side of the Church and in front of Tramway Cottages. Can't remember those buildings there now under the tree, doubt they were there in the 50's? Thank you Philip for your reply.

The Turk's Head was renamed The Tramway at one point so there's every reason to think the cottages may have been renamed too around the same time.

I think you will find that Gulson Road, Binley Road, was previously Brick Kiln Lane, so I think it unlikely that Broad Street had the same name.

You are correct, Prof, and you are also wrong Gulson Road was originally Brick Kiln Lane, but . . . Foleshill: Housing development, although greatly intensified, for most of the 19th century followed the general lines begun in the 17th century. The hamlets, especially Longford, expanded; houses along the main roads joined the hamlets to each other, and to the northern suburbs of Coventry. A few secondary roads joining the main roads, such as Carpenters Lane, later Station Street West, Brickkiln Lane, later Broad Street, and Windmill Road, newly laid out in the inclosure, were built up. Many early-19thcentury brick-built cottages survived, singly and in terraced rows, in 1964, in these streets and also at Longford, Alderman's Green, Hall Green, and Bell Green. By the later 19th century Hawkesbury had taken on its modern appearance