Foleshill (inc. Foleshill Road)

Sadly, it IS West Orchards now - why did they have to change a perfectly good, longstanding Coventry name?

Not far from the General Wolfe pub on Foleshill Road was a posh hairdresser's. At the time of the Coronation they had a huge poster stating (picture of Queen Elizabeth) "Her Glorious Crowning" and (picture of a lady with her immaculate hair-do) "Her crowning glory!" Used to see this whilst cycling along Foleshill Road when I lived for a year in Lythall's Lane with my married brother and sister-in-law.

Prof, I can't help you as I hardly used the Foleshill Road in the fifties, it was back in the thirties when I knew it best. Dutchman, is there a phone book for the thirties, corner of Station Street East and the Foleshill Road, that bank really bugging me. Thank you everyone.

I don't have any old phone books I'm afraid Kaga, I think it's Midland Red you need?

Thanks Dutchman,

Hello Kaga. Here's a couple of images that may show the bank you are looking for. One image shows a list of banks taken from the 1935-6 Cov directory. It lists Midland Bank at 422 Foleshill Road. The other image shows the left hand side of Station Street East, which begins at 422 Foleshill Road. What do you reckon?

Heathite, thank you. I plump for Midland Bank.

The Coventry Evening Telegraph (17th December 1942) and Coventry Standard (13th March 1943) both report on the new British Restaurant in Foleshill, established in the remains of a bombed church. The restaurant had been decorated with murals by students of the Coventry Municipal School of Art. One mural represented "Roman, Norman and Elizabethan dining scenes with a modern British cafe scene." Preliminary sketches for another mural showing an outdoor French cafe "and a road mender frying sausages at an open fire" had also been prepared. The designs were executed by Miss Beeny & Mr A Barlow with sketches by Miss Wilson. I would love to track down any photos which might exist of these murals or find out more about those named students ("all of who were below military age.") Any help gratefully received!!

I've just found these photos of the Foleshill Road from 2011 on the BBC website I thought worth sharing. Peter.

A few generations ago there was no city in the world that could match Coventry, with the most picturesque green belt of villages and hamlets, blacksmiths, streams and brooks, watermills, farmyards, and smithies working in their shirt sleeves. The air full of larks singing, women in little bay windows stitching pieces of coloured embroidery. It wasn't until 1926, the year before my birth, that Foleshill and about five other villages were swallowed up into its boundaries.The long low farm and its buildings looked across a meadow of buttercups, daisies and wild flowers to the Wyken pool known as the 'slough'. A solitary row of silver birch and poplar trees separated the pool and the quiet road, the hedgerows of wild blackthorn covered in snow white blossom in May, hid the old colliery workings, but did not quite hide the wisp of smoke that curled up from the two cottages in the dip. Hazel, catkins and willow littered the water's edge at the far end of the pool. All manner of wild birds sang sharply on the young twigs, the morning full of young growth. At the corner of the pool stood the fishing shed with its rods and tackle, under the trees, and a little landing stage, where the house-boat was moored. A swan ran across the stage, I stood motionless, frightened in its swift launch bursting the water, the smooth ripples spreading out from its motion. The pool was full of activity, birds piping one against the other, and water mysteriously splashing, issuing from the pool. Where the stream flowed into the pool, with reeds and flowery marsh of pink willow herb, yellow celandine showed out from hedge bottoms. I looked back, in the spring air the pool gleamed. But Foleshill was a very large parish, already it became the first tramway in the city, the first Co-op, the first tallest chimney, heaths, fields and trees, to be demolished for estates and houses.

Covtom, Lythalls Lane was named after a farmer named Lythall, Windmill Road after the windmill near Foleshill water mill. Right round the north side of Coventry were beautiful large houses among fields and great parks of beauty, some with great herds of deer. Most men employed in agriculture, the women employed in weaving. But during the 1st war a great seam of coal was found under Keresley Green that kept it going through the strikes of 26. Neither was it swallowed up by Coventry in 26. But the collieries of Craven and Victoria of Sowe Common, closed, although mining in the area had been going on for a very long time, and so did the railway line from Deedmore Rd to Aldermans Green Rd close, and Foleshill came under Coventry in 26. But Little Heath had become Courtaulds before then and a second factory was being built, and the Heath vanished. Most of the pathways you have today were made by the colliers and the canal people of a long time ago. Livingstone silk mill was still there in Lockhurst Lane making silk pictures, when they opened the Livingstone swimming pool in 1936. Alfred Herberts had opened much earlier at Edgewick. In the middle of the 19th century George Eliot had a lovely house in Bird Grove, so named because of all the beautiful birds in the area. Yes, there's a great deal more about Foleshill, it has a great part in the history of Coventry.