Keresley (incl. Keresley Castle)

Duke of Kent visiting the rose garden - Keresley Penny Park Lane, anyone know where abouts in Penny Park Lane this was please.

Hi Morgana, this has to be the big house on the corner of Penny Park Lane and Nunts Lane just up from the Convoy pub and almost opposite Holy Family church and school. The roof style fits the little bit you can see in the film. There is a high wall around the garden so you can't see in. There could be a better view on Google maps if a double decker bus had not been passing! I don't know the history of this house which is completely different to any of the others around it even though I did live nearby for a couple of years in the 1970's. Regards. Roger

Thanks Roger the house with an indoor swimming pool. Yes I was wondering if it was that house. As for the history I might be able to find out something on that. I was interested in the rose garden. You might know my cousins then

The house at the corner of Penny Park Lane and Nunts Lane is in fact now divided into two properties. One is called 'The Gulls' and the other 'Whitegates'. The estate agent's description of one of them describes the house as a former farmhouse dating back to the 17th century. I can't think of anywhere else on the Penny Park Housing Estate which would have had the fancy twisted brick pillars in the rose garden, or indeed which would have had a mature looking garden. The newsreel was from 1938 so everything else in the area would have been quite new.

If this house was previously called 'Penny Park House' it was the home of Coventry benefactor Alfred Harris who died in 1975 and is buried in St. Thomas's churchyard at Keresley. Was it also a base for the Auxiliary Fire Service during World War Two?

I am now almost 100% certain that the 1938 newsreel shows the Duke of Kent in the rose garden at Penny Park House. I managed a little walk past the house this morning and found that the original house is now divided into three properties, not two. The one nearest to Watery Lane is called 'Penny Park House'; the middle one is 'The Gulls'; and the one which faces into Nunts Lane is called 'Whitegates'. The rose garden with the twisted brick pillars appears to be in the garden of 'Penny Park House'. I must add that I only walked past at normal pace, I didn't stop and stare or intrude on anyone's privacy. Hope this helps. Roger

Wonder if the owners know of its royal past?

If there had been anyone about I would have spoken to them, but I doubt if they would have appreciated some strange old guy knocking on the door and babbling about the Duke of Kent and roses. It would be nice to tell them though.

Hi 'Not Local' - why not write a short note and pop it through their door, you could then maybe knock their door a day or two later? As you say, it would be nice to tell them

It's a lovely elderly couple who have lived in that house have done for a lot of years. Yes, a note is a good idea.

I was born just off Watery Lane on election night 1959, and my middle name was named after the man with swing-o-meter, chap called Mackenzie. Was there a bus depot along there somewhere?

Was this the one you mean?

I would like to know more about the Gilkes shop in Bennett's Road, Keresley End, as that family features in my ancestry. I know that some of them were butchers, before that farmers in Berkswell. Was the Gilkes shop a sweet shop?

Prof. Gilkes shop, Bennetts Road, Keresley was a general store & post office. Occasionally the postcard comes up for sale on ebay.

Many thanks morgana for the information and picture. My link goes back to 1850 with a marriage at Berkswell Church but the Gilkes family had a farm on what became the Massey-Ferguson plant. It was known as Hockley House, I think on the corner of Banner Lane and Hockley Lane. I contacted the firm long ago but all that remained were the farm outbuildings converted into a social club for the workforce.