Coventry Pubs

I remember one landlord that kept it when it was the Summerland Tavern and the man was Johnny Herbert, who i believe now keeps the Hastings in Clay Lane and formerly kept the Coombe pub in Earlsdon

Memories suddenly arrived about the Gas Street Tavern. I went to Moseley Avenue School with a lad whose parents kept the little pub in the late 1940s. Whenever I went there they always seemed to play Popeye films on a projector in the back room. Presumably it was demolished to build the ring road.

Yes. It may not have been strictly necessary but the council had a policy of demolishing any older buildings in the vicinity of the Ring Road.

That is wonderful to see. Thanks

Two things about the Fox and Vivian. I believe it was the only pub in Coventry without a step, you walked straight in no up or down step. And can anyone tell me what is a vivian?

I doubt that as the pub was built on a slope and so must have had a step of some kind. The nearby New Inn however was built on the flat part of Gosford Street and has no step as far as I can ascertain. According to one theory it was the mythological god of hunting. There are many other theories including a simple mispelling of the word "Vixen" by a sign painter in the days when few manual workers had ever been to school.

Thank you Dutchman, I could find no reference to a vivian anywhere so your logic seems spot on to me.

(I haven't got an anecdote about the Trafalgar Arms, but) I do have one about the King William IV, almost opposite St John's Church in the early 1950s. My brother was friendly with the guy on the pumps at the Bunty garage. This chap was big and a rough handful; I believe he was a commando or something similar in WWII. Well, of a Saturday night, whilst the city was being rebuilt and there were loads of Irishmen doing the building, every Monday in the Telegraph there was a list of the drunks who had come out of the pubs at chucking out time, and find a policeman to beat up. Usually described as "A Coventry man, Patrick Kelly", or "A Coventry man, James O'Hara", etc. The guy from Bunty went to his allotment one Saturday afternoon, returning at about chucking out time, and as he passed the King William IV, three Irishmen, all the worse for wear, came out of the door, and tried to set about him. He floored the first one with only punch and then jumped on his assailant's face in his hobnailed gardening boots. The other two took one look and fled! And when the one on the ground managed to get up, he fled too. It was about 1951 or 52. The guy from the Bunty got quite a few drinks bought for him on the back of that story.

That was the "George IV" in Fleet Street. "William IV" was in Spon Street next door to the Co-op. (I get those two mixed-up as well ).

Hello dutchman I am certain I didn't mix the two pubs - I don't remember ever seeing the George IV. However, I didn't say the William IV was in Fleet St. When there was a traffic island at St John's church, just at the end of Fleet St was Allwoods' triple-fronted store (Allwoods, Atkins and Turton) - I well remember it, set back with a wide pavement in front and a glorious smell of roasting coffee (I can smell it now in my mind...) then two or three other buildings, then the William IV, also with a wide pavement in front, which was, I guess, in Spon St, effectively between the traffic islands at St John's and Holyhead Road. I always thought it a forbidding building; painted a sort of dirty cream, with the name in 18 inch high letters mounted on the front wall, under the upper windows. Two doors, each up a couple of steps, and rather small windows. The Co-op was the other side of Fleet St. If you started by the bus stops in front of the derelict frame of the 'new' Co-op, there was a tobacconist and a newsagent; the entrance to Iliffe's (which was upstairs); the Co-op Chemist, then another shop on the corner, and around the corner (which I tend to think of as Smithford St, but was probably Fleet St still) the large Co-op furniture shop (well, there was always furniture n the display windows). Then two or three other shops, among which was a travel agent - we never went in any of those shops - the the large pub on the corner of West Orchard, the 'Admiral Codrington'. There were only foundations on the other side of West Orchard until the White Lion, which was on its own, and just beyond it, the wire fence stopping people falling in the opened cellars between there and Broadgate. Going up the other side from Allwoods (which my mother shopped at every week) were some more shops, including, as I remember, a funeral parlour (we DEFINITELY didn't shop there!! ) then a piece of market on a largish bomb site, behind which were canvas screens hiding the Sherbourne (the market traders chucked loads of rubbish over the screens) then a bit further up Woolworths, with the large archway entrance to the arcade on its left hand side. Mother with me in tow went to town on the No 11 bus more than once a week, getting off in Corporation St and making a beeline for the market in Smithford St, after which we would go through the arcade, some more shopping in the Barracks Market, and every so often to the Food Office, near the Geisha cafe, as I remember. I can remember its interior clearly, but not its outside or exactly where the entrance was, just that it was close to the Three Tuns one side and the Geisha the other. Occasionally we went along Corporation St to the bit of market on the site of the old Rex cinema - I loved to go there, there was a brilliant toy stall, right at the back - and to the Gas showroom to pay the bill, or buy a new burner for the gas cooker. I clearly remember Newsome's rather drab grey frontage along Corporation St, and there was a large shoe shop in the stub of a turning towards West Orchard not far after the Co-op store's derelict site,blocked off to permit building work. I can't recall a George IV pub at all...although I sort of have a vague recollection of another pub on the same side as Allwoods, but further up towards Woolie's. Does that make sense to you?

This is the William IV at 67 Spon Street next door to the Spon St Co-op: These are the same buildings viewed from the junction of Spon St and Windsor St/Barras Lane: This is the George IV at 16 Fleet Street: The pub on the corner of Fleet Street and West Orchard was the City Arms: The Admiral Codrington was in Radford Road.