More mystery scenes

Helen - those photos came from the Coventry City annual health report for 1905. See here. One of the pages shows so one of those areas perhaps? From that link you can also find most of the other yearly reports online! There's a ton of data to go through!

Triffic Neil! I checked out the other reports and found a few more mystery photos. Some of them I've already got from the newspapers but these are better copies. Not all the reports are there during the key demolition years. I wonder if the Herbert has a collection?

They were no mystery to me, there were thousands of them, all over Coventry, now I admire the work and time you put in. I look at them and think, this was the reason we have the topic Corley open air school, Whitley Hospital, but the people that lived in them, their way of life, how they survived was amazing.

That report makes sad reading Neil. It seems quite personal to me as well. Those statistics would include my grandad's first wife and family. He lost one child in 1903 aged 1 year, and 2 in 1904 aged 3 years and another aged 1 month. His wife died in 1905 aged 28. I asked my dad once and he said his dad referred to it as his other life. I don't know how you live through that.

Annewiggy, And that fits in with almost every family in Coventry.

The houses on post 53 would be about a century old, and for that century every day would have told a different story. The square would have been full of kids, skipping, leapfrog or marbles, fights, arguments, laughter - every kid would have known each other from birth. Right from the days you were in a pram, you knew the kids who didn't wash, the old woman that pinched your cheek, the kid you could not tell if he was looking at you or somewhere else, the men that drank, which door belonged to which kid at night. You were in and out of the houses, the only difference was night time, you slept with your brothers and sisters, often we ate in our friends' house. Before we could read and write you knew all these things. Three or four women could hold a conversation without leaving the house, above the noise of us kids. The houses were two up, two down, each room about 12x12 - most people had either a set of drawers or settee alongside the wall as you opened the door and entered. In the corner would be the stairs, so a chair would be placed between the drawers and the door to the stairs that opened half-way till it hit the chair. If you had sash windows the beds went through there, if not you moved the chair and drawers. The wooden stairs, two feet wide for two steps, then turned right angles along the double central wall that enclosed the stairs as far as the door in the centre of the room that led into the back room (kitchen) and pantry and back-door. The wall that joined the neighbours' had the fireplace so the two houses had a joint chimney. Above the stairs made a box room, small landing and small bedroom, off the landing the backroom was the largest room in the house. In most houses the kids all slept together, a double bed, leaving space for a number of drawers, wardrobes etc. Out the back was generally a wash room with a small fireplace and copper, mangle etc. If it had a back garden you may have a bike shed or whatever. Toilets could be single, double, or if a terraced street a block of six. If you lived in the suburbs, there could be a communal wash house and water pump. But to me we had an awareness that kids don't have today, and the house I lived in, I loved it with a passion - to me it exuded a happiness that was alluring, confident and ever present.

I did wonder if it was the Priory Street area, which caused me to look at those in the library - A similar aged building to Neil's, but with subtle differences - eg roof material. This and most of the other buildings in the Triumph collection turn out to be on New Buildings. I've been meaning to work out where they belonged for ages. The mystery photo wasn't one of them, but at least one set of library pictures is now no longer a mystery. When people ask questions it makes me try harder. The building row in the picture I posted above dates from between 1750 to 1810 but the block you can see a small bit of at right angles was built before 1750. Another block was parallel to that, behind the camera and was also pre 1750.

Thanks Kaga, atmospheric and educational at the same time.

Looking at the picture of the back of the house I would think that back was on a fairly busy road with all those posters pasted on it. Where was it that had newer houses that as you mentioned were not straight on to the street? The posters mention Leicester races, perhaps that side of the city.

Yes Anne, I agree that the posters suggest a main road, There were areas where old buildings had been on their own, perhaps starting life as a farm and then new buildings arrive. As yet I can't find a suitable location on the old city maps but I haven't looked further out - say Longford. The odd feature of the road being higher than the downstairs is not that odd. I don't know if they were built that way or the road just built up in front of them. Because the road repair habit tended to just lay a new layer on top of the old, the roads have inched upwards until modern techniques arrived. Now they dig out the old surface and put a new one on. Those haven't been ideal for some homeowners either because while the old roads undulated, the newer ones were levelled. So a home might end up above or below the street level.

I had a great aunt who lived in Emscote near Warwick. Her house which is still there, you went into the kitchen in the back. When we came to go home we had to go up the stairs to the living room (dark) to go out the front which was level to the street as my uncle would pick us up outside. I had thought it might be something like this. The newer house next door in the picture also look strange as the upstairs window appears to come nearly to the corner. I haven't been able to find anything that looks like that yet.

Annewiggy, Simple alterations over the years - we had a toilet built on to the side of the house, and running water into our backroom around 1936. This meant we didn't have to use or go outside to the pump, you can imagine how pleased we all were about that - no more spilt water down your leg, no more water spilt in the kitchen, so no ticking off from mother. But we still went outside to the toilet. Most people used back doors, some times you walked 100 yards or more down the street past your house to go through an entry then back up to the back door. Big trouble for us kids was with no cars we got used to dashing straight out of the house into the street over a number of years, but as cars increased at a fast rate we had trouble adjusting.

Helen did you ever work out whereabouts (on New Buildings?) that court lay in your post #62?

We are not worthy! Does anyone have a better map of New Buildings including the courts on the southern side. Annoyingly Old-Maps earliest one seems to cut that off, especially after the location of Court No.3 as it appears my great grandfather and family were there in the 1881 census.