Drinking fountains and water pumps

No Garlands Joke Shop, the horse trough mentioned by Ronald 34 in Queens Road, survived long after the war, it was near Queen Victoria Road, and I remember it well. It was not the one shown on Greyfriars Green.

Seems I was mistaken, the photos clearly state the horse trough on Greyfriars Green came from Queens Road. I looked at the wrong picture!

I remember there were several of the the then modern type drinking fountains pre war as a small child being pushed around the city and lifted to drink. Greyfriars Green, Swanswell, come to mind! Definitely there were the old ornate ones with heavy cups hanging on chains, all in pram pushing distance around Cov, Canterbury St my starting point. l remember one time we waited for a horse to finish drinking from the overflow trough before we could get a drink from the continuous flow coming out of the spout but no idea where!

Prof. Coventry was full of drinking fountains, pumps, troughs and springs, up until the war, half of Coventry houses were still using pumped water from wells and springs, and Coventry had great cattle markets in the past. Helen's photo of the old Mayor's parlour showed one of its famous pumps. And Nicholas Rhea's book 'The Curse of the Golden Trough' highlighted horse troughs.

Thank you MR, I do appreciate what you do for me. What a beautiful building, and look at the clock with the beadle and the town crier popping in and out, in their red and green coats, in allusion to the heraldic colours of the ground of the city arms. When the house was altered, these figures went to the City Arms public house adjoining, kept by Mr David Dalgleish. Before it was the Mayor's Parlour it was the Coffee Tavern, and before that Peacock Inn, and in front was this antiquated looking pump, which had stood there from time immemorial over a deep well.

Pool Meadow water pump Saved by Lauri

200 years ago there was a water pump outside the Mayor's parlour, Broadgate. It was destroyed but left a huge well six-feet in diameter - made of sandstone bricks, the shaft very deep that I believe is still deep in the middle of Broadgate.

From Poole's "History and Antiquities of Coventry" A very short time prior to the establishment of the new water-works there were upwards of thirty public pumps, wells, and conduits, pretty equally distributed over the city, for the gratuitous supply of water to the inhabitants and these the Corporation were bound under the provisions of the local act to keep in efficient state of repair; and this legal obligation still remains (book is 1870!). There was one pump in Far Gosford Street, two near the bottom of Gosford Street, one near the end of Gosford Street, one in Jordan Well, one in Smithford Street, a little below Vicar Lane; one in Vicar Lane, a conduit opposite Bablake Church, another near the Lamb and Flag, Spon Street; a pump on Spon Causeway, a well by the side of Spon Bridge, a pump at Spon End, one at the top of Much Park Street, one in St John Street, one near the top of Little Park Street, one near the George Inn in Little Park Street, one in Cross Cheaping, one in West Orchard, a conduit in George Yard, bottom of West Orchard, a pump in the Great Butcher Row, one on the east side of Bishop Street, near the top; the Broad-well in Well Street, a well at the bottom of Palmer Lane, a pump in Upper Well Street, a well in Agnes Lane, a pump near St Mary's Hall, another near the top of New Street, another in Mill Lane, a springing well at Hobs Hole, the Swanswell spring, a pump in Grey Friars Lane, another in Cow Lane and a well in Harnal.

That's a very interesting list Anne, thanks . I know where many of them are, and some that aren't on the list, but images of them are mostly limited to the pumps or the derelict wells as they were excavated.

That about covers the lot. But in those days most pumps had a water trough, they had to with amount of horses around. The pump you see outside the Mayor's Parlour had been there a long time - before it was the Mayor's Parlour, it was called the Peacock Inn, but the pump had never worked, the landlord went bankrupt, A wit asked how could it work when the landlord was up the 'spout'. The landlord had kept an inn further down Cross Cheaping before the Peacock - he was a quiet and studious man that liked animals, and he had several large toads in his garden, and they followed him about as he tied a worm on a piece of string, drawing it behind him.

Just read a post on facebook from the North Earlsdon Neighbourhood Association (NENA) saying that the recently restored (2015) Earlsdon Avenue drinking fountain was vandalised yesterday. The grade II listed fountain is now off awaiting repair.

1951 but I think this one in Bayley Lane is still there albeit for show only -

I have seen this one before but cannot recall where it was - anyone?

Neil, I think it must be Whitley. This is a 1930's picture from the Midland Daily Telegraph. As usual a rubbish picture, so dark that you can't see any detail but looking at the outline it looks to be the same as your picture. There does not seem to be any pictures of the whole building on t'internet, just bits.