West Orchard

Spot on Neil. Thanks MR & matchle55

Heathite, Would you know the number of MHW foundry in West Orchard? Think they were just inside. Thanks, Kaga.

Hi Kaga, is this them at number 65?

Heathite, Brilliant! So two shops in from Cross Cheaping on the north side was MHW. Somewhere I posted I watched them making intricate ironwork, so it turns out to be stoves and grates - now that ties in with next door Rider Betts. Every time they had a spillage the pigeons off the tower came down in droves, and that now makes me think when I saw the tower door open it was something to do with culling or egg gathering, and not the clock. So MHW foundry covered about the length of 15 houses belching out fumes not a dozen paces from the fish stalls. On the south side corner, was it the Talbot?

Hi Kaga, I don't know the building at the south corner, I think the street is Bablake Street but it could be on Smithford Street or West Orchard, no idea. The picture should be familiar, you can see the Market Tower from where the pigeons descended.

Heathite, Not sure, but that's a rare picture, can only be between '37 and '40. I always came in from the Burges end, Burges meaning bridge, that once was over the Sherbourne river. I think in that time period the Co-op was preparing that end of Corporation Street for a new store, and of course the new Owens and Trinity Street was all the rage. People today with all the knowledge and travel, would find it hard to understand a new shop was like visiting a new shopping centre in the USA today. I can't emphasize enough about this, most of our neighbours had never been as far as Warwick, going to the Memorial Park was like visiting Australia today. My advice to youngsters of all ages, talk to your grandparents, find out about their life, it's too late when you're grown up, they have either gone or lost their memory.

There were originally 2 bridges but the one spanning the Radford Brook had been built over with properties on both sides of the road for hundreds of years. The brook's original route (under the corner building of Hales Street and up to the end of St Agnes Lane before meeting in a mill pond at the bottom of what is now Trinity Street) was not apparent on the 1850 map but the section back towards Bond Street was mostly still there. Which suggests that it was culverted under Hales Street. However there had long been a link between the brook and the Sherbourne with a mill using a millrace between the two at a point not far from where the West Orchard connected with Corporation Street. At some point between 1850 and 1897 they used the line of the mill race to permanently feed the Radford Brook into the Sherbourne. That probably helped dry the land along Hales Street, although from the flood pictures of Hales Street we can see that sometimes water chooses its own path. The mill pond itself was drained some time in the early 1800s but the area remains boggy. The Talbot Inn was indeed on the south east corner of West Orchard and MHW ran from the Thistle Inn (65), east to about 3 properties short of the Burges end of the road (from number 82 in 1898).

I think I can help to narrow that down even further - I'm going to hazard a guess at '37-'38. Zooming in a bit, it looks like the building that became Timothy Whites - now the Flying Standard - has not yet been started, and I've seen photos of the steel framework of that building being started in 1938, and as we all know, Owen Owen was completed in '37.

OK, scrub that rubbish I just spoke above! After a helpful prompt I've just realised that what I thought was a row of low buildings is in fact the top half of Timothy Whites - now Wetherspoon's - which was half hidden by Owen Owen. But, that still helps us to narrow down the year a little - must be late '38 to '40.

Photos all from my own collection. Rider Betts was about half way down on the right hand side of West Orchard from Ironmonger Row. The Land Gear was taken from in front of Rider Betts

Brill! Any more

Rob, I thought you could have put a date on everything by old CET papers. I also thought that was the chemist in the background half-hidden in that picture. As I posted before I thought we bought shoes in Butcher Row in '35 when they had a closing down sale, so I make the bulldozing was at the end of '35 and the Owens building finished end of '36 app. Now I also thought Coventry was in a hurry to get it finished and up and running, there was plenty of labour and unemployment outside the town that I believe came in. Now Rob, for a few weeks the chemist was known as the Black and White Minstrel Shop - er 'um! Max Miller walked on Coventry Hippodrome stage and said, "I went up the street this morning and walked into the Black and White Minstrel chemists. I said to the girl, "Do you have a couple of rubber?" "What size do you want?" I held up my hand and spread my fingers, the girl's "Oh my gawd.""

Heathite The most outstanding place and out of time on that address list is the Tote Investors - few people would have known or understood what that was about, for legally you could not visit, you would have to use the mail or the phone and few people had a phone in those days, it would have been a very discreet building, any form of betting was just getting off the ground.

The image source says it's from 1937. West Orchard and Smithford Street topic with MHW.

I wasn't sure where to put this one but it's a fascinating image due to the angle it's been taken from. I think (though happy to be corrected!) it may have been taken from somewhere up on the roof of St John's looking east over and up towards Broadgate mid-40's perhaps(?) but a really unusual view and shows us what was left on West Orchard amongst others.