Broadgate

I've checked Collywobbles website now and again for some excellent imagery (not sure if on this forum but thanks if so!) but I never realised after seeing this postcard for the first time, that McDonalds had opened its first store in Coventry in 1895

As far as I know Smithford Street did not get trams until 1905 so the picture could not have been taken before then.

Broadgate - 1960s and 2011

Broadgate - 1960s and 2017

You've got some nice photos there. Is it me or does the 1960 colour photo really help tie the post war version with the present? I'm always slightly confused about how the modern layout relates to the past.

I agree Helen, I always linked Hertford St. with Broadgate and now they have both been changed dramatically. Enough said!!!!

This one has got me, is it the pre war Wetherspoons building, or a similar one that did not get built? The Coventry Standard 21st January 1939 says "Work has begun on the Prudential Insurance Company's new building which will occupy the important corner site in Broadgate Coventry near Holy Trinity".

They built it on the corner with the Spicerstoke but it was destroyed during the war. It appears in a few photos and aerial shots. 1939 Broadgate

Thanks Helen, a 1939 Cathedral Lanes then. I am surprised they had built modern for the time Owen Owen's and Trinity Street and then came up with a copy Tudor design like that. I wonder if there were so many discussions then as there are now about Cathedral Lanes.

Helen. I sure hope they had it insured with someone?

Ann, looking at the aerial shot, there was a clear intention to frame Holy Trinity with something Tudorish but modern. In many ways I can understand getting rid of the genuine stuff. It would have been rotting and cramped. Techniques for sympathetic restoration were unknown at the time... they were unknown until recently. I bet many were upset at the whole plan to demolish genuine historic buildings for soulless modern monstrosities but others who embraced clean forward thinking lines. Coventry had been locked in time since the medieval era by poverty and land rights so the new prosperity boom from 1850 onwards must have been a relief for most. It changed a city from one that locked most homes within the walls to one with extensive suburbs and a mix of business, retail and housing in the centre. The business made the city a target but it also meant that a lot of people were living further out and safer. Kaga, I hope so too. It must have been devastating for so much new building work to be wiped out so soon after completion. For us the demolition of the old is more painful but at the time the new builds would have been a sign that things were on the up.

Helen, do you know if the building was ever completed. The 1939 Britain from above shows it under construction in May 1939 but I cannot find any pictures of it and of course the post bombing pictures don't show it at all ? I agree about having to knock a lot of the old buildings down. We have a very romantic view looking back at old pictures, like Butcher Row but we can't imagine the conditions behind the facade they must have been pretty horrendous, with meat etc. just lying out on displays. It must have been a terrible health hazard. They must have been very damp as well. My grandfather lost his first wife and 3 children between 1901 and 1905, all with chest related illnesses. I was just commenting on architectural styles, thinking nothing changes, as we have seen on this site debates can get very heated about styles as we all have different opinions as to what we like. I don't have a very strong opinion but I do know I was not very keen on the concrete of the 60's.

They did complete it but I think that there's only one photo of it I've seen intact. Your artists impression is far superior. The library picture shows Broadgate looking south, with the new building on the very left and the ugly Boots conversion on the right. I'd not even registered that there was a separate block of mock Tudor, although when you posted your picture I knew I'd seen it before. I'm useless at remembering anything I've seen unless it is the earliest version available. Re damp. One the of disasters of modern building was the cladding of old timber buildings in brick and worse, concrete. Instead of preserving them, they hastened their demise because they stopped the buildings breathing. Water was trapped against the old timbers and they rotted in decades, where they had survived for centuries when exposed to the elements.

Is this the one you mean Helen, 4th picture along, it says 1937 but must be post 1939