Polars Yard

Received an email from a friend who has a stereoview of 'Polars Yard, Coventry'. A quick glance across the 1851 maps and I cannot see anything. Any ideas O great forum?

Hi Ben. A few things spring to mind - the first that it's a badly scrawled Palace Yard (although it could be the Little Palace Yard because people mixed them up). The second is that it was fronted by a business/owner called Polar, which is how the yards were often named. There isn't a record of a pub called Polar but the list isn't exhaustive and places could change their name briefly. The final option is that it was further out Polars but I doubt that would be in a stereoview.

Could it be 'Police Yard?'

They did like their Yards on those 1851 BoH maps didn't they - and not just Neil's ones! The British History online site for Street names does mention: FOLEYHUL LANE (Foleyhullane, 1410-11; alternatively Folxhullane) (fn. 126) ran S. from Well Street* to the Poleyard and the Radford Brook. Though not sure exactly where FOLEYHUL LANE refers to?! British History Online

Folkes hull was the original name for Foleshill. I have wondered why there wasn't a road that bypassed the river and the city centre when coming from the west or the south and heading north.

Articles in the newspapers refer to Hop Pole Yard, Leicester Road

1844 Coventry Standard

Good researching Anne but I think that it would be another unlikely place for a stereoview.

My first thoughts on that, are that whoever edited that section of the Victoria County History mistook the old English F-shaped S as an actual F. It can be very misleading when reading old text, from early medieval until the printing press took over, and even in a book of recent years, an author highlighted what he thought was an embarrassing street name - but which in reality was only innocently named Suckers Lane! Anyway, to return to this particular conundrum, I wonder if it should've been written as SOLEYHUL (Solihull) LANE?

Maybe mate? Or they mistook and put the Y in for a S so maybe its Foleshul/Foleshill?

In "Coventry 600 years of municipal life" there is mention of the Tripartite Indenture 1355. In the list if areas it list Folkeshull which is obviously Foleshill, Keresley is listed as Carsley . This does not take us any closer to finding if Hop Pole Yard is Polars Yard. I wonder if it is possible for BK to let us get a glimpse of the pictures?

Dear all - it is Palace Yard. I'll get a copy for you when I can.

Could it be that it's not actually a Y, but the archaic 'thorn' character, making the actual phonetic spelling FOLETHUL?

That's an interesting idea. However, the thorn usually replaces the 'T' and the 'H' together, so they should have left out the 'H' if that was the case.