River Sherbourne

Coventry Herald 1940

I've only just realised that the bridge sits over a new bit of the river. Originally it curved over to the right and then back again.

Rich Edward has just posted this interesting river image on FB from 1956 from Priory Street.

Wow, part of my playground as a kid. If you enlarge the pic you can make out the dam which you would lower into the river to raise the water level for fire engines to use. Just in front are two concrete blocks with slots in. Planks could be dropped into the slots also to dam the river. Pic taken on a bad day I think. When there was heavy rain the Sherbourne would be a raging torrent. It would be a couple of days before we could play in it again but all the rubbish would have washed away

When was this photo taken? I've never seen this view of the river.

I would guess 1970/71

Thanks for that information. Where would I go to see that bridge or am I too late?

Thank you, Midland Red, for the map. I hope to be able to visit Cov. at the end of the year and I'll make an effort to go to the bridge. When we was using the buses in the Cov. area in the 60's we called them the Midland Dred as we could never organize ourselves with their timing.

During a flick through my photo database I came back over this one - I can't recall if I've added it before or where I sourced it from however is it possible this is Ram Bridge? It doesn't actually look wide enough so possibly mislabelled - Helen what do you think? It may be the Sherbourne Crossing on Priory Street?

Someone has it on Pinterest and it says 'Flood, West Orchard 1900'. Don't know where they got the information from though!

I was thinking along those lines Anne. There were some little linking bridges between factories on the north side of West Orchard. It's not big enough to be one of the proper road bridges.

I'm thinking it's this view. The narrow bridge is much older than the building spanning the river behind it. But I'm far from sure. The photographer was possibly on the other side of the river to the dot.

Hi Helen. It is very difficult, I had been wondering if it was a little further along, in between the old Albion Works which could be the building on the left and the school on the right. On the far right hand side of the picture the shape of the area does get a bit wider towards the bottom of Neil's picture. There is a little gate at the end as well, gate to the school? It says in the newspaper that the chapel a little further along was under water and the bridge was damaged. If you look at old maps online there is a fire map for 1897 which shows something across the river but I don't know if it is a bridge or a building. Just a suggestion. I bow to your greater knowledge of the area but without pictures of the street at the time it is difficult

I was thinking it didn't look big enough to be that collection over the river but looking again yes, it could be. The wooden 'bridge' could be the remains of a one storey wooden building as in the fire map. I think you're right Anne. The photographer could have been looking out of the previous building.