Post-war redevelopment

Most people look on 1945 as the end of the war, peace and quiet for everyone, but it wasn't that simple. Millions of troops around the world wanted to go home, but transport could not cope at one go, there had to be order, but how? An American troop train pulled into Euston, so did a Canadian and a British (bad planning?) - the Americans and the Canadians each thought that they had priority on transport for some months, they clashed, a huge brawl erupted, the British Military Police told the Brits to stay on the train while other MP sorted it out, but that was minor to things on the continent. The Germans had looted, raped, and shot civilians during the war, even POWs but in the last few months of the war they shot whole villages (women, kids, old men, animals), torched whole villages, but when the war ended they were on their own. Military were after them for war crimes, but partisans of countries hunted and meted out their own reprisals, women collaborators were shorn of their hair, many men tortured and shot. In cafes and bars people were dragged out, never to be seen again, and people didn't interfere, you kept your head down, minded your own business.

PeterB. Well, well. So Coventry people made parachutes. So that's why I felt safe testing them out

An interesting view from the British Newspaper archives, The Sphere newspaper, of the area around the Cathedral under construction. October 1958

Looking across to Smithford Street - or what remained of it! Christchurch spire visible to the left. That was some area to clear

Annewiggy. You can see Owen Owen's ugly building, the left hand bottom corner of your photo, how it cut Trinity St, the Burges, off from Broadgate, did away with Cross Cheaping and West Orchard, just a small channel of traffic through, completely different to what people I talked to expected. But then Coventry people were used to sudden upsets, it all started in the mid-thirties.

That was handy, Annewiggy, as an excuse for being late for school on Thursday mornings. I hated hymn practice, so construction work, roadworks, were a handy good reason for being late. It was never questioned!

There is an exhibition of old photos of the city centre titled "Precinct Shopping" at the pop-up gallery in City Arcade. It is on until 31st March. It is open 2-5pm and all day for the shop front festival on 23/24th March. Peter.

From AnneWiggy's earlier picture I have added labels

I thought that around the mid thirties a lot of Coventry centre had been built well over half a century ago, and most buildings had an amount of timber and timber decays and the top end of the Burges was about to collapse and so was Butcher Row - so the council was forced to rebuild them. But the council did not just replace them, the top part of the Burges and Ironmonger Row, Little Butcher Row - they allowed Owen Owen to take over. Why? Owen Owen built a store that was massive and solid for Coventry, higher than other buildings in the new Trinity Street, more like a castle, small windows for a new shop. Why? Then less than five years later, they rebuilt, different spot, different design, three times lighter than the previous shop. Why? Post copied from topic Owen Owen on 12th Aug 2018 11:57 am

Different style because Coventry was being built in a contemporary style and everything had to fit in. New position was due to the Gibson plan. Post copied from topic Owen Owen on 12th Aug 2018 11:58 am

Flapdoodle, would they have the time? Can't see them planning anything until the late part of the war and then I have my doubts - they started to rebuild in mid to late '45 I believe. But Flapdoodle, don't think as a person of today, but as of that time. Let's go back to 1935, and the citizens have elected you to the council to look after their welfare because you're smarter than they are. Part of the city is falling down and has to be replaced and with your friends you plan to do just that - but it's going to take a lot of your city's money, and then you open the paper and you see a house destroyed by a bomb, not in this country but in Europe, and each day it's getting closer, so the papers tell you - this is no dream or bull****, this is for real. But large shopping firms want to move into Coventry, they can share the expense etc? Flapdoodle, this was really happening - this is Coventry's history. So Owen Owen take over approx half of the old shops and streets, but they build big and solid and reduce half the windows and glass - if one bomb is fortunate to hit the building, they will not lose too much, this is the thinking in those days. But now Poland is being smashed, not one house, but whole streets, our gov't is in uproar, no one has ever seen them like this, panic is rising, and you are called to emergency meeting after meeting. War is imminent, now you have to plan to maybe save your city, your mind is in turmoil, no-one knows anymore what is going to happen. Coventry is hit, maybe around 1,000 killed, scores of streets destroyed, no time for planning rebuilding, looks like more may go. But the bombers have been stopped, then a new un-manned bomb hits England - Coventry people look up, will they reach Coventry like the bombers did? No time to rebuild yet. Then Germany is defeated, Hamburg, over five years of bombing, is a pile of rubble, over 40,000 killed. Coventry breathes a great sigh of relief, and thinks back, but we can now rebuild, the war no longer on our soil. Japan will hit America before us. But then 'wham!' - the atom bomb. Not one house, not one street, now a whole city in a few seconds. More than a city, the land is contaminated for years. Can anyone build a shopping centre to withstand that? Of course not, so what the hell does it matter how fancy they build, are the planners really too concerned what they pass, or really looking to the shoppers in 2000 era. Russia is first into space, so the two mighty powers face up to each other, so there is still a great threat to the Coventry people from the skies, but in 1962 the crisis ended and Coventry have had a peaceful time since. Not once since '62 have you looked at the skies and had that dreadful fear like your fathers and grandfathers did. To me between 1935 and 1965 was Coventry's most unstable period in its history.

As strange as it must sound now, our council really did do a lot of planning before and during the early part of the war, as their own publications testify. The picture below depicting their (or should I say, Gibson's) dream for a new Broadgate was made in 1939, and then in 1942, as the last few bombs were being dropped on our city, a booklet named "The City we Loved" was published, including talk of future plans for the city centre, and promising not to make the same mistakes that previous planners had made with poor layout and "incongruous" shops. I'm sure many people might've questioned whether the councillors' time was being spent wisely while the war was still raging, but I've not heard if that was so - if indeed anyone was aware.

Thanks for that one Rob. Why anyone could find anything wrong with that layout for a historical old city like Coventry I will never know. All these modern buildings having been built over the years have been since replaced with further modern atrocious (in my mind) eyesores full of UNUSED SPACE. Ok we have to move with the times but let's not get carried away and start forgetting what the word 'heritage' means. Yes, I know what you are thinking - I no longer live there but it doesn't mean my heart no longer has any space for the old city. There are still a great many of 'the old school' in Coventry who I am sure are so sorry to see what's happening to the ever decreasing city centre. Sorry folks but that picture of Rob's just got me going, and like you say modern shops would have looked inappropriate. A forfeiture to progress! As always the wrong people have the last word and the people that matter no word at all. That's life!

Rob, that is just the kind of answer I was looking for, of course not during the war but in the fifties, but where would it have been published? - not in the Council House itself, I tried - I don't think in those days to the public itself. If you wanted those sort of things you were told to join some political party or such, or I may have spoken to the wrong person, a number of things could have happened, but it was always an interest to me what the council was doing. Anyway, Rob thank you, and pleased to hear from you now the 'what happened on this day' finished.

Dreamtime, I'm not sure I like the road between the churches. I always loved the way they stood side by side, but yes the island would have looked peace and quiet for the city following the bombardment type of thing - 'one can dream'.