Coventry Pubs

Ah... ok I see what you mean. I knew that Spon St had a mix of original, restored and re-located buildings and was looking for the plain upper storey rather than the 'tudor beams' and altered roofline. I was there earlier this year and wish I'd paid more attention, but I've only just discovered that my relatives were at the pub or indeed that it had been a pub! Thank you for your help.

I am confused by conflicting information on this website here. The details don't match those on the page on the same website for the Recruiting Sergeant. Is the above an earlier page?

The issue arises because the information creating these records is imperfect and interpretation and copying also throws in discrepancies. There are directories, adverts, deeds, reports of soldiers billeted, etc. In theory the references represent the same people, the same business and the same building but... The early records aren't property numbered at all and need working out as to actual position. Because pubs required little more than an area for chairs, tables and a keg or bottles, they weren't as fixed as you might think. They sometimes expanded sideways, swallowing up other properties and then sometimes contracted leaving the original property and settling in the extension. Others relocated altogether or just changed their name. Sometimes the street numbers changed and that throws everything into confusion. The final knot to unravel was names. Families were very uninventive with names, and multiple people can merge into one when trying to unravel what's what. I don't know the source material for the Recruiting Sergeant or the beer house but anyone is welcome to try and streamline the records. I'm trying to unravel the history of the Coach and Horses on Much Park Street, so in a bit I'll publish a summary of what happened there and you can see why the records throw up anomalies.

Hey, I don't blame you for being confused, I'm sure there are many other things that are not yet correct on the pub website. It's very much a "work in progress" and, with well over 1,000 pub names to research, it will probably never actually be what we might accept as "finished"! The majority of the information was retrieved from a defunct site started 20 to 25 years ago, called "Real Ale Rambles", and mainly researched by Fred Luckett and John Ashby, with contributions from David McGrory and one or two others - using whatever archival material was available back then. After their original site disappeared I soon realised that many members on this forum missed the super pub resource, so in late 2019 I spoke with John and Fred and suggested that I could try to rescue all their material and build a brand new website which would be easier to update. So, for the past 4 to 5 years, with more material available online, like newspaper archives, I've been slowly but surely overhauling it and adding newly available information, licensees, images, etc. A long, long way to go yet, but it's also very useful when people like you point out anomalies, like with the Recruiting Sergeant, which helps me to target and correct the site (thank you!).

Helen & Rob - thanks for the replies. I was puzzled by the two entries for the 'Recruiting Sergeant' and '14 Spon St' on different pages with different and conflicting information. I fully understand the difficulty in researching something like this, having spent several years trying to identify ancestors called Smith... My thanks to everyone who spends their time compiling and maintaining these records as without them we would really struggle to trace our relatives and their history.

Hi folks, I hope you didn't mind me moving these last few posts from the Spon Street thread to this Pub topic, to make it easier to locate in the future. (Don't worry, this happens regularly when conversations drift from one topic to another related one!) Anyway, I've been busy today, and I'm hoping that we now have a more correct and comprehensive record of the Recruiting Sergeant, and its short spell, apparently, as a Beerhouse. Please let me know if you spot any obvious bloopers!

Just wanted to update and correct an entry in the Coventry Pubs listings. Regarding the Leopard Inn, 64 Smithford Street, this was closed, maybe demolished c 1938/1939 (still listed in the PJ Ltd Directory for 1939 with licensee W Judd but the directory was often a year behind the times). In Kelly's Directory of Warwickshire 1940 64 Smithford Street was occupied by M Jackson and Sons (Clothiers) Ltd, otherwise known as Jackson the Tailor, a multiple shop similar to Montague Burton. The building alongside its neighbours was destroyed in the November 14 Blitz.

Thank you again, Geoff, I've now updated The Leopard.