St John's Street

Whereabouts was St. John's Street?

It joined Little Park Street to Much Park Street.

More old newspaper clippings gold! Did Coventry really have the smallest house in Britain? Yes, it was sandwiched between two Victorian terraces in St John's Street - No.12. It was lived in by Joseph and Annie Jacobs. The building was only 4ft 9" wide, but at pavement level where it was faced with sandstone blocks, it was much narrower because of the passageway which led through to a court. There was a tiny living room downstairs and one bedroom. It was opposite Burdett the baker (which became Gladdings) and the Cottage Inn. It appears to have been built as a fill-in between the terraces. It's been mentioned on this thread before but going back some time now and Foxcote's old links/images seem to have disappeared. Pictured here being demolished in 1951.

There was a lot of stone in St John's Street buildings. I can't decide if it was robbed out wall or if the area was very old and built with stone to begin with. Probably the former. That street and the south end of Much Park Street had several trackways that connected to the towers in the southern wall. I imagine that they always had to be kept open so that the towers could be manned but once the wall was decommissioned they built courts based around these entries. This 'house' was at the junction of a likely track.

More Coventry Archive gems unearthing! I think they have this one wrongly labelled and it's St John Street with the old Cottage Inn on the left about to go.

We are very proud of you Helen.

The photos on this pub page seem to agree with you Neil, well spotted!

I took this photo of the Telephone Exchange, Little Park Street, on 9 Mar 2017, from St John's Street

Good spot Neil. I thought I'd let stuff at the Herbert cool down before I tried to correct some of the picture labelling mistakes. The very confusing thing about St John's Street is that it was in a different place to the current one (good pic MR). Not to mention that it was Dead Lane originally. All the renaming must play havoc with trying to connect records with locations. Add to that the pubs shunting about and things get thoroughly muddled. Thanks Dreamtime I love jigsaws and Coventry is a really good one.

Does anyone know of a Saint Johns Street in Coventry. Obviously I know of the church of St John, but was there ever a street of that name (before the modern one that is).

Just south of the modern one - used to be Dead Lane. A favourite picture of mine with the Cottage PH right of centre.

As per my post#3 and thanks to my friend Tony McSweeney on FB - another shot from a newspaper clipping of No.12 - aka the smallest house Looking at the map Helen shared above interesting to see in to the entrance to what I think was Court No.6? That must've been some old City Wall stone surely..........

Nice one but it wasn't court 6. On the 1887 map it was the passage directly down from the H of JOHN, on the south side of the street. Very probably bits of the wall. Several of the passages and lower walls all along St John's, north and south, including the hospital at the west end were made up of stones rather than brick infill. The passage may have originally been wider.

Ahhh thanks Helen. For some reason I had it in my head that it was North Side to the west of The Cottage. No idea where that came from?!

I cheat. Many of the Troughton sketches look along streets, which give an idea which sides things were on and in which order.