War Memorial Park

Just found this painting of Broadwater House by James Henry Bambrick as I mentioned earlier in this thread on page 3 and described by Vernon - I've still to find an actual photo of the place but what a lovely looking building it looked: Difficult to believe a place like that would have been left in disrepair..... All that remains is the Pillared entrance today hidden in the Kenilworth Road undergrowth... GoogleMap'ed

Hi. I must agree, what lovely house. I have great memories of the War Memorial Park. I helped with the pony rides bringing them from the far end of the Kenilworth Road to the park and back again and must have passed the pillared all the time and never seen it, but on my next visit to my sister whose house backs on to the park, I will go and have a look. As a family we spent a lot of time at the park in the rock gardens and the rose gardens. I was never a fan of the peacock as I was forced to have my photo taken with one at the Leamington lights, and it made this horrible noise. My niece sent me photos of her boys having fun in the new water squirting park (how things change).

Who remembers playing on this ?

Oh my goodness, good find Anne, yes, and the pony rides up and down the strip of grass alongside the Kenilworth Road. They were next to these slides weren't they?

My two did and well remembered, then it was an ice cream from the kiosk. Great photo, Anne

Here you are from 1937

Links to short YouTube videos of knitted poppies (made by Earlsdon Women's Institute) and "The Beech Leaves" art installation by Steve Tomlinson: Knitted Poppies video The Beech Leaves video

Talk about building on green belt. The residents of Armorial Rd must have hit the roof with all of the development in and around what is now Stivichall Croft, Knoll Drive et al.

Tony S, now I know I keep popping up on this topic, but I am an old Coventrian, now on 2 the ticket for entrance to the park was sixpence, but did not the carnival people, floats etc get in free. I am inclined to believe so, and I'm damned pretty sure, if so I was actually in the carnival procession and was in that park that day. In those days carnivals were much bigger and popular than you could imagine today, my family entered every town and village carnival, trying to win first prize in the various classes. I still have a great photo of our family as such, my father made a replica of one of the famous boats of the day, dead to scale, he made it to fit over the old big pram of those days, the two youngest in the pram the other four of us walked, everyone in uniform, we won many first, but as far as I remember the judging was in the park, great old days.

I was travelling to work today through the Memorial Park past the putting green just as the frost/dew was beginning to disappear and it looked just like a meandering stream. I grabbed a quick shot of it (though not very good)

Oh gosh, the Memorial Park. In the 1930's I stood around excited waiting for the carnival to move off. In the 1950's I waited excited for the football game to finish, so we could start, the same for the tennis, waited for the game to finish, so we could start. In the 1980's waited for the marathons to start. Guess I had my share of waiting in the park.

Broadwater was the home of the Royal Observer Corps Number 8 Group until they were relocated to their custom built (bomb-proof) bunker at Church Lawford in the early sixties. My dad was an Observer Officer in the ROC (his title on mail being "ObsOff Beesley") until his death in 1963. I remember visiting Broadwater while it was still operational and have memories of a classic operations room with large map and aircraft symbols on magnets being moved around. The aircraft silhouette stencils were a last vestige of the ROC occupancy. I'd like to learn anything else about the house, or ROC Number 8 Group, if anyone has any links. Malc Beesley

This could be a start, if you follow this link you could click on the first result to see this image on flickr.

Superb! Thanks Heathite - that's the first photo I have seen of it but it definitely was not taken in 2008.

Went to Coventry War Memorial Park on Monday 18th July. My great uncle John "Jack" Reddington died on the Somme 100 years ago that day. His widow Hannah had a copper beech planted to his memory in 1925. It is quite large now. Took along one of the ceramic poppies that were at The Tower of London. Last photo is his burial place at Heilly Station Cemetery on The Somme. RIP Uncle Jack.