Stoneleigh Terrace

From British History online. Stoneleigh Terrace in Queens Road to the south of Greyfriars Green which was designed by James Murray. (fn. 42) Nos. 1-5 are of variegated brick with stone dressings, having Gothic porches with polished marble shafts and carved stonework in the gables and to the window-heads of the second floor. Nos. 6-9 and 10-13 are blocks in a similar but less elaborate style. The house called the Towers at the junction of Queen's Road and Warwick Road has an ornate Gothic front and is part of the same group.

There's a very rare few seconds of film of the Terrace in this film here (at 02:54) showing about the building of the Ring Road.

Heres an incredibly rare and very early shot of the slightly later section of the Terrace that faced Warwick Road. The building has only just been completed here - you can see the new glass panes that have gone in. This is the section you can view in the post a few up from this. The original section went up around 1860-65 so this must be around 1880 I know Helen and Anne has seen these from Tony Richards' amazing blog section on wet negatives he uncovered and they have been linked before in relation to very early Spon Street images so I am linking in Tony's blog as promised here in return for allowing us to share these amazing images

Thanks indeed for the link Neil. Wow, what an amazing find those wet plate negatives turned out to be! I've done some photo-editing in my time but I've never used a paper mask!

Brilliant stuff!

How about this for an amazing image in front of Stoneleigh Terrace of what I think is a downed Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter. Rather than actually having been shot down there I think these were put on display to up morale.

The BF110 is in the Coventry Telegraph, newspaper archives 7th October 1940. It says it was shot down over South West England a week before and would be on exhibition for a week.

James Murray the architect of Stoneleigh Terrace ended up living in No.5 - the end plot which was the biggest. There was a passageway to the side of that - does anyone know if it was known as Crab Tree Close? My friend Paul Michael Kennelly found this which is his original request for builders and pinpoints more the date.

From the newspaper archive Neil

What a fantastic photo Neils Yard! Such a shame these well built residences have gone. My grandmother was obliged to do 'war work' in WW2 as her family was grown up and she worked as a filing clerk at The Towers, featured elsewhere in this post. Often wondered what it was like inside . I think at some time it was a hotel.

Hi, here's a map with the name actually listed.

Brilliant Anne - I'll share that with Paul if that's ok?! Thanks Prof and thanks Heathite but we were looking for a map with Crab Tree Close on. However with thanks again to my mate Paul . . . Murray died in that house aged just 33 after designing most of Victorian Coventry. The evidence is confirmed by this map from 1740 - the fields on that spot were known as Crabtree Fields.

The land belonged to the Freemen. In August 1860 at a meeting the portion of Crab Tree Close and Bullfield set out for the Freemen should be let to Mr Marriot on a building lease for 99 years at a rent of 2d a yard.

I joined the Coventry City Police in 1956. At that time I believe Stoneleigh Terrace was still totally intact. Most of the buildings were offices but one of them was The County Club. Traffic lights had just been installed at the junction of Warwick Rd, Queens Rd, Eaton Rd and St Patrick's Rd. Prior to this the junction which was known as 'A' point was controlled by a constable standing in a secure box in the middle of the junction on a 1 hour on, walk the beat for an hour and back on the point. The beat box was no 3 best and was opposite Stoneleigh Terrace. Looking back it was a terrible thing to knock this Terrace down and would be strongly opposed today although I probably thought nothing of it at the time. Other manned points were Smithford St and Hertford St, The Burges and Hales St, and Bishop St, King St, Leicester St and Leicester Row although only the latter was still being worked when I joined. It was manned from 7.00am until 9.00pm and finished around 1967.