Pool Meadow and Fairfax Street (new and old)

B Brilliant that one Rob, for someone like me who has no sense of direction. I can fully associate with all the surroundings on the photo above, including the stiletto heel killers (cobble stones) in front of the fire station. If a picture could paint a thousand words well it's that one. Thank you. Lots of goodies on there to talk about.

Great picture! I lived born/bred, in Meriden and used this on a regular basis through the 50s/60s and was then old enough to achieve a driving licence. Talking about it tonight with Rob and describing what it was like on the ground, Rob says I must use the term mucky not "*******e" although I believe my term describes it far better. Most of it was rolled down brick ends/dust and if it rained it was "mucky", some of the potholes you could lose a person in. No, a place to leave/ catch your bus and get the hell out of. Derek.

I agree, a very good view of Pool Meadow. Most of the buildings on the right hand side were demolished to build the new Fairfax Street. The aerial camera is pointing roughly eastward with the Sherbourne visible on the top edge of the photo. I've tried to lay the features onto the map below. The yellow spot is roughly where the car in Neil's photo was.

More great work Rob/Helen

Just to avoid future confusion - May we all agree that Helen's notation 'New Buildings', is not referring to the street of the same name accessed from Trinity Street (and home of the much missed Alhambra)

Now you're all agreeing it was a mess in the fifties, I'm not arguing about the 60s, I didn't know it. Helen, you're way out with the yellow spot, the picture I queried was right in the top left-hand corner where the buses are in lanes (wrongly). Rob, you just don't believe me, that map is also wrong. There were no bus lanes, they were not spread out, they hugged the wall where the ground was more level. Why can't you show ordinary photos, not those from above, they were not in existence, it was all about negatives. 1953. There was a war on Russia/Korea, we had several power cuts without warning. Candles in shops, there was a shortage of coal, we had no photocopiers, no tape recorders, no system for storing vast quantities of photo's or negatives, no jet planes, no nothing hardly. It was impossible to photo every inch of Britain in the fifties. Pixrobin was twenty years behind me, 'Bomber' Harris made air photography in the UK viable. Look, Rob, you could not buy those photo's, or where Neil gets them from in the fifties, way before our time. I doubt we'd have that quality of paper, we had old written paper files for insurance, etc. Neil, Rob, I would like to see one of those from above photo's, but of Hales Street.

Looking through the CET it shows that there was not much difference between the state of Pool Meadow in the 1950's or 60's. The picture from 1956 shows the same surface as in the aerial shots from 1953. The car park was extended as a temporary car park in 1961 taking in part of the cleared Triumph works (so this would only have been a rough surface). In 1964 a picture shows that there were still only mobile toilets in use on the car park and the surface of the road is still the same. And in 1966 a request that another car park should remain open on Sundays for services at The Cathedral as "The surface of the Pool Meadow car park in wet weather was flooded in places making it difficult to use". Looking at old pictures that show cars parked in the period between the war and the ring road being built many of the car parks appear to be "temporary" on cleared building sites. I think drivers must have been used to parking on rough ground then rather than the marked out tarmac sites we are used to today!

Kaga Might I suggest that those 'lanes' are what bus drivers would refer to as 'layover lanes' - it is where we put the bus to keep it away from the public - remember "the best bus is an empty bus"

New Buildings split, as you see on the picture. The Meriden Tavern (later Alhambra) was where the two joined.

Kaga, those images are government aerial photographic plates (very big ones). They have been scanned and copies of them are available to download from the Britain From Above website. We don't own physical copies of them.

I'm sure most of you may already be aware of these, however, there is some relevance to the use of aerial photography post WW2 as mentioned earlier in this category. There was a BBC Timeshift documentary which covered the Ordnance Survey story, unfortunately it's not on iplayer now but from memory I believe it covered the use of aerial photography in the period 1944 onwards. I have put a couple of links which may be of interest. BBC Timeshift - Ordnance Survey Blog Ordnance Survey - Photo Mosaics

The NLS maps are an invaluable resource for me. I've contacted them in the past to pass on thanks for their site and on the forum behalf.

Kaga, I've never once said that I don't believe you - I'm always most grateful for your unique memories. The only thing I've been trying to do, is to convince you that those aerial photos are genuinely from 1953 - that is all. The photos are freely available on the fantastic Britain from Above website. Please take a look, I think you'll be impressed. The link I've provided shows just their Coventry photos, 486 of them. I'd love to learn why you think the maps are also wrong? I gave you links to two genuine pre-war Coventry street maps - what could possibly be wrong with them - they're just maps, nothing sinister is going on.

If you'll pardon the pun, I think your yellow spot is absolutely spot on Helen! Super explanatory diagram, thank you.