Aerial views of Coventry

View towards Stoke, 1936. It is supposed to have been taken from the Cathedral Spire. Mods note: This image is not available on that link. See post #15 for a (corrected) view

Don't think it is Foxcote? Doesn't look anything like the view from the Cathedral.

Could it be taken from a church then Dutchman?

I have checked this out with a photo I have taken from the spire, if you look at the very bottom the finials can be seen, which are the same, the roof is still intact, yet I don't recognise anything else in your photo. I am probably wrong but there you go.

Thanks for taking a look NormK, I can see the finials now and the building at the bottom to the right with the cross. There's quite a few 'substantial' old buildings to the bottom left, I'll have another look at them.

There appears to be a really strange circular design on the side of that factory building on the right hand side, next to the chimney.

BTH had a circular sign like that Foxcote, and talking of chimneys there seems to be a lack of them considering how many there were in those days. .

You're right about the BTH emblem on the end of the building, Norm, but from the angle of the photo it should be on the left. I used to see that emblem everyday through my childhood, it was only 100yds down the road and you could see it from our backyard. Unless the negative has been reversed but even then it does not look right. At the opposite end should be a hill leading up to South Street School, no hill. Beginning to doubt if it is even Coventry.

Well, it doesn't sound as if it is Coventry does it. I just looked on a site to see where there were other BTH factories and found that there were lots. It was a really interesting read with lots of advertisements, so even if the I got the photo wrong, I found out about The British Thomson-Houston Co. Ltd.

I've been studying this image and am almost 100% certain it isn't Coventry as there isn't one feature which suggests otherwise

There's a superficial resemblance but everything is in the wrong place. Also the terrain is too flat and the roads too straight to be in Coventry.

Hello everyone I have been an avid reader of this forum for some time but this is my first post on any forum, so please be gentle with me! This photo has intrigued me and I wondered if it might be a mirror image of what we should be seeing. The gabled building in the foreground looks remarkably similar to a photo on the Coventry message board local history forum entitled "Birds eye view of Coventry in the sixties". This shows a photo taken from a similar position to the 1936 shot. If the original photo is looked at in mirror image then the buildings directly in front of the cathedral look the same as the 1960s photo. Could this be the corner of Priory Street and New Street?

Hello Geoff I believe you're correct. I can now make out Godiva Street, Grove Street, etc. It was stupid of me not to have tried it already.

Oh, good grief !!! How could I not have noticed that? I spent ages trying to compare that aerial view, both normally and mirror-image, with photos that I've taken from the cathedral spire looking towards the Stoke area, and I just couldn't match up the streets - I was ready to agree that it probably wasn't Coventry. But then when Dutchman mentioned Godiva Street, etc., I realised that it was probably New Street straight ahead.... and then.... oh my goodness, how could we have missed the actual roof of the cathedral apse right in front of us! And yes, it is mirror-image.

OK - is this how it should look? If so, please can you identify a point for me to understand where we are looking? Thanks