Stoke

In 1918 T E Brown, butcher, was at a tribunal appealing against National Service. His address was 90 Walsgrave Road, which is here. Looks like it to me, you can just see the butchers is on a corner.

Well done, Anne Again!

Oops, sorry for misleading everyone but you all know that I don't understand the city outside the old boundaries. I think Anne has it right about the modern location but I find all these shop postcards interesting/amusing. They thought they were giving away an advert for their shop but were placing themselves in history too.

Shops covered with meat or fish seem very popular for being photographed. 53 Caludon Road was run by E V Bernasconi who calls himself 'Progressive, advertising & printing'. I wonder if they went round knocking on doors to get people to have their shop photographed. We have come across many of these postcards to identify. I wonder why they did not put the address on them.

Well done Anne, as always! And goodness me, it was in my c1912 postcard image of Ball Hill all this time.....

The road looks so wide in that postcard Rob, especially compared to the old road in the distance but even on wide angle in Google it looks quite a modest road. Even at that point the shop looks modernised compared to the shop card. Modern view of Walsgrave Road.

Also a wool shop just down towards Clay Lane on rhs, Miss Mundy, and later owned by Edith Broughton who lived in Druid Road after long residence towards the bottom of Marlborough Road. The family had a veg and fruit stall in Barracks Market! Also in the other direction near/on corner, St Michael's towards Old Ball, Boswells? Good furniture shop, where most of my furniture came from in 1961.

It is interesting how trains of thought can be triggered. I saw [in another thread] Copsewood on the bus shelter where we often caught the 21 bus to Bell Green. Although I've heard of Copsewood, I've never known where it actually is. Never too late to learn, so looked on Google Maps.

Walrus, Copsewood is that area of Stoke off the Binley Road, Bromleigh Drive and Wyver Crescent (where I was born) with other streets on the former Triumph estate (had been a sports ground) the other side of Binley Road. Stoke where the former GEC telephone works were off Uxbridge Avenue and Crescent Avenue now alas gone. When I lived in Momus Boulevard the telephone exchange for that area was 'Copsewood'.

In case anyone's wondering what I've been up to in the last month or so, it's been spent creating a "child" website for Historic Coventry, for the area I've spent most of my life in.... It's still very much in its infancy, but to get it on its way I've copied across a couple of relevant "Your memories" tales from HC - including a lovely childhood memoir from our very own Prof. There will always be more to add, but it's probably now ready to be seen in public. Of course..... any of you with Stoke memories or historic articles to contribute will be gratefully welcomed.

I like it. Thank you.

Please note, an old Midland Red bus stop. Midland Red now gone, their successor, Stagecoach almost gone. They have one hospital route, taken over from Travel de Courcey who went into administration in 2020. Their Rugby schedules about to become National Express franchised. The service to Rugby hospital, 85, already run by National Express.

After looking again through this topic after some years, I now realise that Britain from Above had the answer to this conundrum. Below is a 1931 aerial view which I've marked up to show exactly where the Weigh House (machine) was. And just below it, the other side of the road, is the brand new Walsgrave Pub - still going strong and serving super carveries!

Rob, thanks for all your work on the Be-Stoke website! As a boy born and raised in Stoke I spent many enjoyable hours going through it yesterday. Nice photos of the Forum cinema which I can remember going to (Lady and the Tramp!) and interestingly the Stoke Rectory which I went in as a small boy. I recall seeing the Bowling Alley (as was) being built in the 60's from my bedroom window. Interesting reading the memories of the Forum shops.... there was a hardware store by the bus stop which smelt of paraffin with solid wooden floors and sold everything, maybe called Philips? Also how about the parrot that was owned by the greengrocer close to the bus stop? It lived outside in a cage and used to mimic the "ding-ding, all aboard" call from the bus which often had people spilling from the shops in a panic fearing that they had missed the bus.

Thank you for your kind comments, Poetscorner, much appreciated. I can't take any credit for the Newsletters, though, as they were produced by the Stoke Local History Group - but they do make an excellent addition to the site. Of course, if ever you'd like to expand on your own super memories just above, they'd make great reading on the new site - it's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for! I'm copy below an amazing picture of Stoke's recent-ish history, which brings back so many memories for me. I only wish the photo was my own, but it was posted ages ago on Facebook, so I thought I'd share it here. There's an 'S' Reg. Cortina estate outside the Post Office, so it can't be earlier than August 1977 - but I don't think it's very much later than that, either....