Spon End

That area is a conservation area? Conserving what? Mediocre buildings?!? The Co-Op complex was ghastly - a car park and a horrible supermarket building with fake windows in it. It formed a terrible street frontage and that stupid pub with its horrendous arcading is awful.

They produce a lot of grand document detailing how they are going to do things, and then as soon as someone comes along with some money they let it all go to pot and let them throw up mediocre rubbish. IKEA, with its blank street frontage opposite a blank car park, is an astonishing mess for a city centre street. It's almost beyond belief that they have made such a mess of Coventry.

Yes terrific to see Manor House My mum and dad always used to park there and the 'scrub' area where the Skydome is now when we went into town. Presume that photo was taken from the air?

I remember when I left school in '79, I went on a YOP scheme, which was based in one of the watckmakers' houses bottom-right. I think there was a second hand shop in the row & the best chippy in Cov was also on that row, I think, but with my memory . . .

It's not just the history, but the lifeblood of the city that was destroyed - and in most cases it's been replaced by empty spaces or blank walls. Places where people lived and worked replaced with nothing but lifeless walls and concrete. I know a lot of towns in the UK have had their hearts ripped out, but some have managed to repair the damage. In Coventry the damage I fear might be terminal, as too much of the city's lifeblood has been ripped out and replaced by... Nothing. Student halls & car parks. I fear that the destruction that has been taking place since the 1950s has now been complete, and the loss of every little piece of the city's old streets has combined to create a city centre that's economically dead. I spent today at the motor museum, and that area, which was regenerated ten years ago, is already looking awful. Run down, filled with litter and gangs of bored kids and skateboarders... I have to say it's great seeing all these images and reading the nostalgia, but it's all gone now. Rather than create a sustainable city, the council created a city that had a brief economic blip, was momentarily lauded as a 'cutting edge' town for its plans, but is now an ecomically struggling city with a centre that's totally dysfunctional and in need of, frankly, rebuilding again, except this time based on age old principles of urban grids - not 'trendy' ideas that failed to work. Even that photo shows how bad the city was rebuilt. Lidice place with its blank walls and odd space because it doesn't integrate properly with the older buildings... Now it's even worse! It's been cluttered up with pointless bits of metal.

That was Hunt's Bakery, which for me was the best in Coventry. Their bread was always superb. After my mother retired she would take a bus into town from Binley just to get their loaves. It was a sad day when it closed. Anyone else remember their bread?

There is a scan of a newspaper photo of this area, taken from the air in the mid 60s, over on the main site here. (It's a fairly large image so to view more detail, zoom in, then click and drag to the area you want to see.)

We used to buy our bread from there, also cold meat from Palmer's shop next door to it. They were given the temporary postal addresses of 4 and 5 Spon Street although both were really in Queen Victoria Road.

Fascinating piece of photography TonyS. I enjoyed looking for all the old landmarks, thank you.

What a lovely view of the city you get when you drive round the ringroad. Blank walls and service areas.

Hello all, I was looking at the nice photos people have put up and was wondering something. Where did all the people go that were living in Spon Street and Spon End when the redevelopment began? Is that why they built the flats and so forth, to re-house the residents?

They were forcibly rehoused in the new council estates on the outskirts of town. They could later apply to move back to Spon End but had to take their place on the council waiting list like everyone else. I've yet to meet anyone on the Spon End estate who lived here before it was built.

My family and I moved from Trafalgar Street, just across the river to Fennell House, Vincent St. So we didn't move far at all.

Was that typical Marina, or were you an exception? The impression I got at the time was that the community was broken up, regardless of how well they were rehoused.

Not too sure about that Dutchman. I do know that we had to be near to my auntie, who was rehoused in Meadow House, so maybe that was the reason. I must say that the local area at that time in approx 1966 was very safe to live in. Wonderful neighbours and great community. I continued to live there for the following eight years. Question please? You know the sheltered housing in Wellington gardens, Windsor Street. (I see that it is/was a training centre now) - do you know the history of it? I do remember that an elderly blind gentleman from Thomas Street, was relocated here. We used to visit him until he settled in.