Butcher Row ('Great' and 'Little')

There are pictures of Shelton's digs in Broadgate etc in the library pictures and some work could tie them together with the magazine articles. There was no picture of sunken flower beds though.

Thanks Anne/Helen. The reference in the Ram Bridge image though was interesting as it specifically dated the flower bed subsidence. Can't wait to delve into those archive Telegraph images!

Sorry, Neil, found it now. 10th February 1966

Anne. I have found that the micro reader versions of the newspaper photos are sometimes better than the online versions but it would be even better if the originals were found.

Mended now

I guess it would be debatable if it was a cellar from the properties fronting Butcher Row or at the rear of Trinity Lane but it can't have been far from this place. Osmiroid, thanks as I think this was originally one of yours

It would be the block marked 25 on here in 1897

Looking through Rob's pics I think this is the row of shops. The shop on the corner is also on image 726 as the corner of Spicerstoke and has the angle cut off shown on the map.

Anne, here is another view, William Kimberley's shop, I think that is him in the centre of the picture, as I have seen a similar looking person in another picture of the shop? Neil, glad to help

There are also some good pictures on here

Having been looking at Butcher Row again, it has made me reassess where I thought it was. I had always just considered it as a small offshoot off Broadgate. I did not realise that it was as far up as Holy Trinity. Mr Kimberley's shop was really in the heart of the city and Butcher Row an important part of the daily shopping for the city. As a major part of my city shopping was in the 60's I considered (wrongly) that the area in front of Holy Trinity to be in Broadgate. Trinity Street, a street that at the time did not have any shops of interest to me (no clothes or shoes) I think there was a stationery shop. To me TS did not start until the black and white building which I think is the Flying Standard. So it has been a good exercise for me and looking at the pictures of BR now I can better place where it was.

It's very hard to relate the old city with the new. I feel more at home with the original layout, despite never having walked it. For ages I didn't realise that the post war temporary shops were set back from the original street line on Broadgate. Little things like that throw my orientation off. Initially the road plan was to leave most of Butcher Row east side intact. Whether it was the needs of the road or the desire to open up the Holy Trinity Church view changed the plans I don't know. I don't think that the collapsed cellar was the shop right on the corner but a tiny bit further down Butcher Row.

If it's any help, as far as I knew the flower beds were right at the rear of Butcher Row of the 1930s, and the Butcher Row we know from photo's on here was the Victorian Butcher Row, not the original that was much older. The Victorians filled in most of the huge butchers' cellars that were deep and cool and had great vats of salt and huge thralls, from when Coventry held cattle markets and were made to supply meat to the Barracks. What the Victorians did not fill in then Trinity Street did. They may have missed that small area at the rear. I would have asked, was there anything found in the collapse, like salt pans, wooden ladles, iron hooks etc?

Came across this picture of Butcher Row in a Warwickshire book. I thought it made a nice change to see it on a sunny day. A lot of the pre -demolition pictures make it look quite dismal.

I love this scene from another of my favourite old Cov spots - Little Butcher Row looking towards Cross Cheaping. This must be one of the last images of the area before clearance started - dated 1935, a late glimpse of everyday life in an ancient street.