Coventry Pubs

Was the wine bar the Litten Tree

Not sure of the name of the bar in Hales Street, but was it above the New Orient cafe? I seem to remember it was licensed upstairs. We used to go in there when the pubs shut on a Saturday afternoon at 2.30!!!!

This afternoon I decided to have a talk with my wife's uncle, who is in his nineties, and who lived in Starley Rd during the 30s, 40s and 50s. He remembered one thing that I said, and was disputed: Allwoods Atkins and Turton's store WAS set back, with a wide pavement in front. I asked him if that was done when A A and T was formed in 1937, and he couldn't be certain, but believed it to be likely. He said that there were a lot of changes going on in the city around that time, and quite a few buildings were demolished and rebuilt illegally. He knew one person in the area whose house was demolished by a developer who had absolutely no right to do it! Unfortunately he doesn't remember any of the pubs in Smithford St / Fleet St; he said that (a) he wasn't a drinker then, and (b) many of the pubs around that area were 'a bit rough' anyway, so he wouldn't have used them.

The short stretch of road between Fleet Street and Queen Victoria Road was part of Spon Street and there were definitely shops there in the 1950s. The odd appearance of the shops' frontages was due to the once common practice of building the ground floor of former watchmakers' houses out over former front gardens.

That photo doesn't show the traffic island; it must have been just out of shot. All I can say is that I know what I remember, and it's a pretty clear memory. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any photo with a view of the location that I remember at that time, always either to one side or the other. Whatever was there, it can't have been very interesting! I do remember one fairly small shop just next to Allwood's that stuck out a bit, and I remember it being empty - nothing in the window, and seemingly unused. I don't know what had been in it previously, and there wasn't a name over it, unlike just about every other shop nearby. I do know there were shops a bit further along in Spon St, and there was also somewhere there the Plough public house. Please don't forget, though, I'm remembering from having been there at the time, and though no-one's memory is perfect after 60 years or so, I have a very good memory generally of that time - better, in fact, than a few years later. I also know someone who is about 3 years older than me; if I can make contact, I'll see what she can remember of the area. Shame my wife's uncle couldn't remember more - but you never know, he might mull it over and come back with something. At least I got a little bit more to add to the overall picture!

The Plough was destroyed by a bomb in 1941. It's shown as a vacant lot just the other side of Queen Victoria Road in the above picture.

I don't remember the pubs along Spon St and Spon End very well, mainly from conversations long ago. My elders tended to talk about places as if buildings that had been there prewar were still there, which doesn't help nowadays! My mother from time to time walked along from Corporation St to a hardware shop on the RH side of Spon St, about 3 doors or so from Holyhead Rd going out of town. Can't for the life of me remember why she went there, but they had something she needed. But usually I saw Spon St and Spon End from inside a bus when I was very young, or a car when older. I can remember when the old gate (chapel?) by the school in Spon End was occupied as a house; there was an old lady lived there,and she would often be sitting outside in good weather (why on earth there..... ) The "house" part was later pulled down, and the structure turned into the ruin that has existed since. There were also some houses with top shops in the Butts, set back from the road, with a piece of waste ground between the end of the row and the corner into Spon End, also extending behind the houses. That was a popular dumping ground for worn out old cars - I can remember a Wolseley similar to the one I had and two or three Ford 8s, one of which was just a body shell and chassis, no wheels, engine, or interior, so presumably was a donor for a "restoration". A lot of people were having to 'make do and mend' with their cars - and, indeed, my Wolseley had been "restored" in 1956 - unfortunately! And there were several of the bomb sites in the Spon St/Spon End area used for periods for selling cars - they came, set up for a while, then vanished again, presumably when swindled buyers started getting nasty. My brother, before he bought his Daimler in '54 or '55, looked at a prewar Rover being sold at one of them. He was puzzled why the doors felt so heavy, like railway carriage doors, until he noticed dull paint near the bottom of each door. The metal had rusted away, and someone had filled them with fine concrete, and painted over it. Needless to say, a 'smart exit' followed by a quick salient lesson! As I remember, that bomb site was not far from the entrance to Coventry Chain, so was probably in Allesley Old Road, but there were others nearer to town as well. We ought to start a topic on bomb site car dealers! Does anyone remember the Old Road Garage, next to the Maudslay pub? And the row of bombed-out houses opposite? And Adams the watchmaker's top shop in Allesley Old Rd, next to Four Pounds Ave, before it became adopted, and was widened? I believe it was the last of the old Coventry watchmaker's shops working. Funny old place, dark, dirty, and crammed with tools and parts. My family took watch repairs there before it finished, but at the end, the work was of a not very good standard.

That was the former Chapel of St James and St Christopher Keith. The school and the nearby tower block are both misnamed, there has never been a gatehouse at that end of Spon Street.

Hi, d Do you know the date of the photo? It looked quite, well, in reasonable repair as I first remember it (unlike the old lady who inhabited it!!! ). And yes, I think we knew it as St Christopher's chapel....wasn't that the (re-named) name of the school nearby? I seem to remember it was Spon End School to most people, then it got remodelled/rebuilt and then renamed too.

I don't think it was anything to do with them being watchmakers' houses, d. Judging by the records in my books (I repair watches/clocks as a hobby, and have extensive lists of makers, their addresses, and so on) I get a strong impression that they were dotted all over the place before Chapelfields and Earlsdon were built to house them. A number were in North St and Thomas St, in what were described as 'very insanitary and unsuitable' conditions, and it was very inefficient having to walk around the streets with trays of parts to various different locations. I worked at 4 Allesley Old Rd for three years, in the back bedroom of what had been a dial maker's house, with the rear extension and topshop. But back to topic. There are a quite a lot of houses extended on the ground floor, in this area, to form shops, including in villages. I think it just made a convenient way to turn a house into a shop, particularly given the large families of a century or so ago. People talk about 'watchmakers' houses' but that's really a misnomer. There were dialmakers, wheelcutters, casemakers, pendant makers, hand makers, balance makers, spring makers, plate makers, jewel makers; all the parts were batch made, and the parts were 'collected' into wooden trays - segmented into squares, or blocks with round depressions - so as to accumulate a complete (more or less) watch worth's of parts in each square or depression. When all the parts were collected, by runners visiting each supplier in turn, they would go to the ebauche maker who would assemble them into complete rough movements (ebauches). Afterwards, the ebauches would go to finishers, who would get each one running and timed, and engraved if necessary with a 'maker's' name, thence to the case maker for final finishing, and thence to the retailer. A lot of the business was conducted in the local pubs. One wonders how good the products were, exposed to open air (rain??) pipe smoke, dust, beer - and even some parts maybe dropped along the way, and picked up by the boy charged with doing the 'running'. There was a similar system to ours in Switzerland before 1868, but they did away with their cottage industry, and went to a factory system, which was not really that different, just all under one roof. In the house that I worked in, one day the boss found an 1832 apprentice's indentures in the attic. Putting on his best "Fagin" voice he read them out to us. The apprentice had to get up to make the master's fire, and tea for breakfast; had to sleep under his workbench, had to go to church on Sunday - he got an extra hour in bed on Sundays! - and a long list of things he had to do - or else. I love to know what happened to it. A couple of years ago, I worked with a guy whose grandfather was a Coventry watchmaker of the old type. He had quite a bit of info and a book or two, as well as coming to look at my stuff. Quite interesting!

Hi Keith I think the photo is early fifties. There's a much better one in "The Coventry We Lost" (Vol 1) taken earlier when the house was in perfect condition. The school is called "Spon Gate" despite being nowhere near the gate which was at the extreme other end of Spon Street next to St John's church. St Christopher's School is about a mile away in the Allesley Old Road.

Hi d I think it must have been about '53 when it the old lady was kicked out. And I say that, because I think she was probably a squatter. It stood empty for a while, and I would guess that it was "remodelled" about 56 or 7. Don't remember St Christopher's School then - strange. I worked at 4 Allesley Old Rd 1970-73 I was at Lexor; don't know if you remember them, their HQ was in Lord St (or was it Duke St?) but they had 3 other sites. Production was at 69 Hearsall Lane. They moved to Baginton, then got swallowed up by Rockwell.

Certainly do Keith. I lived mid-way between the two in Craven Street, often saw a girl carrying a tray of finished products from Hearsall Lane to Duke Street. Also remember the immaculate garden display in Duke Street, a far cry from its current derelict state. The workshops at the back have already gone (despite a presevation order) and it looks as if the building on the main road will soon be demolished as well.

Hm, that IS sad - and unnecessary. Do you remember when the back shop behind the Four Provinces club collapsed? And a little anecdote about the HQ in Duke St. It had very steep stairs. One day in hte hot summer, 72, I think, one of the office girls was going up the stairs, and someone else came to the bottom of the stairs, looked up, and had a surprise. She was, er, going commando...! And the pillock went to personnel and complained!!! Sad, or what?

It was gutted by fire recently after being boarded up for years. The neighbours are sick of it and the owners lost all interest when a property deal fell though. Strangely not Keith, and it was the kind of story I usually got to hear. My stepfather converted his workshops a few doors away into a studio and art gallery but they've since been turned into flats.