Owen Owen

Does anyone know the exact date the original Coventry Owen Owen store opened?

Friday September 17th 1937 at 11.00am!!

Annewiggy. Brilliant, but what a statement - the store opened in wartime then, not before as thought. This would have different effects. First, a week after the blackout started, we felt the full impact on how it was to alter our lives, car accidents doubled, minor injuries were huge. The huge staff leaving in the dark would be a nightmare. Although rationing hadn't started people were buying and hoarding. Word went round that clothing factories had turned to uniforms - a quarter of the population was in some uniform or other, and clothes would be hard to buy. A big spending spree for people that had money before they sold out. The 'dark days' in more ways than one.

Kaga. Not to mention all the knitting that was undone only to be used again for another item. My gran was an expert at that (crinkly balls of wool).

Sorry Kaga, I thought I had edited that, it should read 1937. Senior moment.

Owen Owen was the son of a North Wales sheep farmer, I believe.

Fabulous photo, what year would this be, Greg?

Hi, I could be wrong but I assume that Greg's photo was the same date as Midland Red's, give or take a few months - so 1937?

Midland Red's photo is the only one of the first Owens, but note it was all barrow and elbow grease even late thirties - opened in 1937. I believe that they wanted to open on the day the first woman flew solo from UK to USA but they got delayed and she flew in 1936.

A new hole has been opened up on Trinity Street next to Primark. The brickwork looks like it could be from the original Owen Owen building.

It looks about right for Owen Owens. About halfway between Ironmonger Row and the pointy Broadgate end. If it was earlier brickwork it would be on Little Butcher Row. Do the bricks have a frog? What period did they come in?

Hi Helen, I've zoomed into the photo and I don't think there is a frog, but most bricks have a layer of rubble on them so its hard to tell. Frogs came in c1850. The brickwork style looks like Common or American Bond. It looks similar to the brickwork in the second photo in 27 old photos of Coventry's much-loved Owen Owen store in Broadgate. Peter.

Why wouldn't it have been part of Owen Owen's basement in 1937? In fact why not the basement in Neil's photo in post #178?

Not all bricks had a frog in them, some had holes and others were still solid. When I built my first house in the early seventies all the bricks were solid, hell of a job to cut to length.

That's right. I seem to remember the cheaper commons (light pink colour) having frogs, whereas the darker engineering bricks generally had 3 off 1" dia holes. I think the blues were solid. I'm going back to when I was a little boy and the builders were building a new garage because the old wooden one was rotten and falling down.