Tower Street

My grandfather, William Pullen, had a bakery at 18 Tower St before the war which was destroyed in the blitz (Tower St then ran north-south). It was across an alley from the Beehive pub and roughly opposite the Hope & Anchor, but I can't find any photos of that group of streets to show me what the bakery might have looked like or, even better, of the bakery itself. Can anyone point me in the direction of any, please?

Hi Dave, I tried looking on the Britain from Above© Website, couldn't see Tower Street (perhaps another forum member can): Looked at: aerial photo 1 aerial photo 2 aerial photo 3 aerial photo 4 You may need to make an account to zoom in. To be honest, I'm confusing myself now as I can't orient myself in relation to the old pre-war road system. Also, I suspect that Tower Street might just be out of shot Hopefully someone here can spot it @RobOrland's map on the PubHistory.HistoricCoventry page for the Beehive Pub might help to align yourself. I've included Rob's 1851 Street map below (not exactly 1930's but best I could find to hand). The Star denotes the rough location of the Beehive Pub.

Hi Dave, welcome to the forum Garlands Joke Shop is spot on, it's not an area well covered by images. The image below is looking through Henry Street at the corner of Tower Street. There may well be other images from the bombing at the Herbert Gallery history archive But I'll be honest, I've never looked. Of Garlands' links this is the best, and yes a free login will allow you to zoom in. Tower Street is near the bottom on the right hand third. The photo is looking south eastish. Another one to look at is here where Tower Street is in the bottom left corner. You can see that parts had already been demolished before the war. These buildings dated to the early 1800s. They started building along Leicester Street and then moved south, filling in Tower Street, Swan Street and Brewery Street. They were already demolishing Leicester Street before 1931, though that area had particularly small and unhealthy properties. I'll have a look to see if the rest of Tower Street appears in the slum clearance records.

Dave, If you look at Aerial Image 1, the ref on the bottom margin is EPW053108, you can clearly see Swanswell Pool. Unless I'm mistaken, the island on Swanswell Pool is located marginally to the west of north, or if you prefer to use the compass points NNW, which deems the image to be looking southwards.

Well done Helen and Mike, I was getting tied up in knots trying to work out where things were hahahaha Although now that I've seen Rob's overlay map I wish I'd used that last night now I miss the good old days when I could search old planning records before GDPR spoiled it, it was so useful for this kind of thing. The Hope and Anchor Pub closed in 1904/5 and after was a private dwelling, was your Grandfather's bakery prior to this?

Using Rob's Old maps page you can get a reasonable look at the street plan of Tower Street properties. 1926: 1937: If you overlay the two maps, there's a large area that appears to have been removed in the decade between the two maps. Assumedly to extend/ widen Leicester Street??? I guess industrialisation meant Victorian Roads were no longer fit for the increased traffic???

Hello Your contributions to our forum are fabulous Garlands Joke Shop. Over a long period of time. Thank you so much.

Hi Garlands. I'm sure that widening the roads was a big part of the justification for demolition but the state of the buildings was another. Some of the properties were very small and back to back with other, equally small neighbours. Initially they tried to improve the places by knocking back to backs into one to give the properties a through draught but the basic fabric of the buildings was shocking. This area was one of the first to be built on, once cities with commoner rights were freed from the constrictions. They weren't very different from the properties that had been squeezed into the courts and yards within the boundaries of the old city. The width of some of the roads was amazing though. Not much wider than the later pavements. Great map comparison you've done

Just looking on the 1921 census. A William Isaac Pullen, living at 198 Swan Lane, Coventry and working as a bread maker at 15 Swanswell Street, Coventry. Wife: Ethel May Pullen. Daughter: Ethel M Pullen. Is this your Grandfather?

Yes, that's him. Ethel M Pullen was my mum, and you're right that in 1921 she's described as 'daughter'. However, she's 'niece' in 1911, so the story is a bit more complicated than I was told as a child! I remember 198 Swan Lane well; it was William & Ethel's home until he died in 1961 and remained hers for another 10 years or so.

Thanks for this. That's the right place for the Beehive, just north of the alley giving entrance to a court behind Tower St, on the left as you look at the image. My granddad's bakery was the south side of that alley. at no 18.

Hi Helen Thanks for this. I see you've found the best picture there seems to be of Tower St (I still hope for better!). This block of streets isn't on Thomas Sharp's 1807 map of Coventry but are shown in the first OS map from 1836, so that dates their construction as best as I've managed so far. Ben Kyneswood is going to contact the Herbert archive for me and we'll see what, if anything, they can turn up, then we'll go and see what we can make of it. Much of Tower St was listed as "to be demolished" after the Nov 1940 air raid, but neither nos 17 or 18 appear, though nos 6, 7, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22 and the 4 properties in Court 1 - which were on land registered to no 17 - are shown as "to be demolished". No 17 is so described after the April 1941 raid, and I think no 18 is probably included in that listing as it was owned by the same person and had been part of a single freehold (I've seen a note saying that "no 18's documentation was unclear and incomplete, requiring a statutory declaration concerning Charles Walton's ownership by his widow and son"). So the demolition of Tower St was the result of German bombing rather than being slum clearance.