Conduit Yard

Does anybody here on the website have family that lived or worked in and around Conduit Yard, Fleet Street Coventry. I have been trying to find a picture of my greatgrandfather's carpenter and joiner shop that was there before a bomb destroyed it in the blitz, 1940.

Photo of Herbert and Grace and a business card of his shop in Conduit Yard, Fleet Street.

My mother Irene Stafford was born in Conduit Yard and lived there till she was six. Also in the yard were the families of Ward and Davies. My mother was later to marry into the Ward family hence me, Alan Ward.

How interesting! I did not realise it was residential as well. You say two families were living in the yard - what year would that be? I wonder whether your mother would remember the carpenters shop? Was your mother working in Conduit Yard when she lived there? Thanks for taking the time to post some info.

So I have been looking through some pictures again today and saw this one. Could this be the entrance to Conduit Yard, 24 Fleet Street? Is that the Coffee Tavern on the far left?

No, it's the gap between 12 and 13 Spon Street, once known as "Ashton's Yard". The decorative building on the far left is the Plough Hotel on the corner of Queen Victoria Road. The derelict houses just visible on the other side of Queen Victoria Road were still in Spon Street (Nos 1-5) and were converted to shops very early in the 20th century.

Thanks for this, I'm still having trouble finding a picture of Conduit Yard, I can work out why there isn't more info on it! I have seen the entrance to it on the Coventry City Council website, but I can't make out where the yard would be in the picture, anyway thanks for your help again

It probably wasn't photographed much because it was too narrow to get a decent camera angle.

I'm still looking for my greatgrandfather's shop, where is 24 Conduit Yard situated. I have found Conduit Yard, just can't find the actual carpenter's shop

It would have been roughly where the Town Crier pub is today. That is as close as you will ever get since the council has erased all traces of that area.

Thanks for that, I had a look on google earth and the marker for the Town Crier is all the way over by the old cathedral, I think someone has put the marker in the wrong place? I'm guessing that the pub opposite St. John's Church is the pub you are talking about, Dutchman?

Yes, that's Google Earth for you! Yes! The fake row of timber-framed shops corresponds roughly with the location of the homes in Conduit Yard and the pub corresponds roughly with the location of the workshops, although all would be facing west and not east.

That answers a few questions, it says in the books I've read about Conduit Yard starting just inside of the city wall to the left of the gate to Spon Street a mediaeval courtyard. Do you think that the old wall to the city would have been incorporated in the families' homes? That would mean that where the road is now, the workshops would have faced towards the "fake timber buildings"? If you have a look on google earth at the street view of St. Johns Church and pan round to the left so you are facing the timber framed building there is a gap in the wall. I have a map that from 1937 showing Conduit Yard and covered alleyways. Could that gap in the wall be original? It's a big wall to alter though? Would it have been the entrance to the families' homes in Conduit Yard? Somebody on this site contacted me to say she was born in Conduit Yard, but i can not get in contact with them. Thanks for all your help by the way

The section of wall that is there now is completely fake and put there for the benefit of tourists. The road that is there now also did not exist before the early 1960s and does not follow the line of the road which was there before ("Fleet Street"). Conduit Yard ran parallel to Queen Victoria Road. The entrance to it was at right-angles from Spon Street, from the direction of the gap between St John's church and the shops alongside it. There's no possibility that that City Wall was incorporated into any of the homes in Conduit Yard but it is possible that the line of at least one side of the yard exactly followed the line of the wall.

Having examined a number of maps, I now believe the yard was to the east of the City Wall, in the space now occupied by Corporation Street and not to the west of it where the timber-framed shops now stand. At the time of the City Wall it would have been just an empty space between the wall and the back of the buildings in Fleet Street. The houses were added much later a few feet to the east of the wall and facing to the west. The narrow gap between the houses and the line of the wall (now the pavement in Corporation Street) then became the access road to the workshops at the back of the yard.