Old Coaching Roads and Toll Houses

Could it be Hollow Farm off the Radford Road just north of the railway line? That far north puts St Michael's to the left of Holy Trinity, which fits the picture....ish. Here

The picture of the Toll House is in the David McGrory book, The Illustrated History of Coventry suburbs. He says it stood on the Radford Road near the site of the present roundabout at the start of Keresley Road. This confused me as I was thinking about where the Shepherd is and could not think where the slope would be. I have now a list of sites of Toll Houses I found when I was looking at Toll Roads in Tamworth. This list has given me the position of the house and it was actually by what is now the Island by Sadler Road at the end of what we knew as the high mounts. This would make sense as coming towards the City the left hand side of the road slopes up. It is a strange bit of road as it is split in two with a bank in the middle.

Helen, a poor picture but this was Hollow farm due to be demolished about 1936 for the housing estate. This site would have been tempting for the picture as the road also slopes up on the left to the Radford Road.

Well spotted Anne. If the property was about 100 years old in the 1930s, that might tie in with the farm having been rebuilt after the etching. If you look at the land, you realise that the road used to go past the farm but was shifted sideways to ramp up over the railway. Leaving the farm and its track on the original surface. I might see if I can get Google Earth to show me if the features match up.

We are at 2 different places here Helen. The Toll House was further up Radford Road, past the Common. Hollow Farm was near where Hollow Crescent is now.

Oh I see. Same road, just further out

They are both areas I know well, of course a long time after those buildings although I sometimes feel that old !

In his autobiography Joseph Gutteridge talks about when he was a schoolboy. One of his favourite walks was to Radford, and by the lane which branches off to the left by the old Radford toll gate house, across fields and along to Coundon, back to the top of Hill Street. The termination of this lane is called Barker's Butts, from the fact of it being an old practice ground for the bowmen of the City. The site of the ancient butts is now occupied by the new reservoirs for holding the water supply of the city. To the right of the toll gate is another interesting lane called Coundon Lane which runs through the Whitmore Park estate to the Holbrooks, Foleshill and on through Lockhurst Lane to the main road from Coventry to Leicester. These lanes, not being much frequented, were richly stored with plants, many of them useful as herbal remedies, and all of them very interesting to the botanist. Plants, ferns and mosses were there in great profusion, some of the finest specimens I have - especially the hypnums were found in these lanes. Although you could still follow these routes in theory what you would see is so different to a boy nearly 200 years ago but I was interested to see the Toll House mentioned.