J B Shelton - Overview

This topic is an introduction to the work of J B Shelton as originally published in Austin's Monthly Magazine from November 1832 to June 1939. It was wonderfully compiled and transcribed by Rob Orland in 2005. We are all grateful to the Shelton family for their kind permission and encouragement to publish these works. To go a step or two further, it would be terrific to try and illustrate the text with maps, images and maybe some mental excavation into the things he found. 1930s Austin's Monthly Magazine articles, by John Bailey Shelton MBE One of the issues that has become apparent is that he seems to have had no access to the Board of Health maps, an astonishing work of mapping and artwork. The maps show the city in amazing detail (including garden feature such as steps and shrubs). While the maps aren't satellite geopositioning perfect, they're a tremendous feat of work by the Ordinance Survey team of the time. Their value is the early record of many of the ancient, and not so ancient buildings standing in the 1850s. In some cases J B Shelton was digging up features that were still visible at the time of the BoH maps. They can be accessed at Coventry Atlas. There are multiple articles covering the same dig and we are going to try and group them together under a topic each. There is also a book called A Harvest of History - The life & Work of J B Shelton MBE by M Rylatt and A F Adams, which should help eg on pages 36 and 37 there is a map and key to the preparations for the new road Trinity Street. I've started on creating a copy of it on the BoH Map and a suitable map closer to Shelton's day. I'll produce before and after images. I'm sure that I haven't got all the numbers right because they're very difficult to read and if anyone can spot any mistakes, please let me know. Update - I found one of the missing numbers but there is still one number missing - either 43 or 48. I've redrawn the maps and combined them slightly differently.

I combined 2 of the other maps because they are covered under the same articles and to correct a missing item.

This is the area where my mistakes are likely to have been made. The area round the guest houses are very difficult to read. I only seem to be missing either 43 or 48.

Changed to reflect corrected number.