Warwick Row and Greyfriars Green

I remember it and yes, I think it was a bible and not a war memorial. Anyone confirm this?

Nice photos MR, I really like the lighting at that time of year and the bare trees let you see the spires. It's really odd seeing the old and the new. The scale of reality almost seems different. Quite a few of the houses have lost their front boundary and that and the road have all become pavement.

Incidentally, as many probably know, the James Starley statue was moved a few yards from Queen's Grove, near the corner of Queen Victoria Rd, when at one time it had railings round it!

Warwick Row has certainly changed since I took this photo in the mid 1950's

Sir Thomas White

Hi all Following on from a Belgrade butty meeting, a walk to the station was rewarded by these October views, in glorious sunshine.

Philip, it's nice to see Greyfriars Green and surrounds has not lost its appeal. Looks a nice place to sit and watch the world go by.

A leisurely age in Warwick Row Bob Skrzeczkowski

Still quite leisurely last week, Prof Philip and I were in the same class as Brian Holt in 1954

So let's go back before Thomas White's time, when where his statue stands was Coventry's ducking pool. Greyfriars Green was once Cheylesmore Green. About 1800 time a goodly sized pit or pool of water, which according to tradition, our city forefathers used for ducking unruly women, and unmanageable ladies of the town in. It was placed, the public ducking stool and apparatus, which consisted of a plank of board turning on a pivot, attached to a large sized wooden stake, the other end driven into the bed of the pit. At one end of this plank was attached a stout rope to turn and guide it, at the other the ducking-chair, into which the unfortunate delinquent was forced to enter with her hands tied and so placed that she could not move. After a few words from the official of the corporation stating her sentence the culprit was ducked entirely under the water the number of times sentence mentioned. The pit or pool was used by the local innkeepers for watering their horses, it was a clayey water and called the Red Sea. When the old Greyfriars church crumbled and fell in ruins the spire part became a pig-sty, known as the tallest pig-sty in Europe. Long before Hertford Street had been thought off. Where the Starley statue stood was the ancient fairground, with booths down each side of the green and in the centre the swings and roundabouts. The Starley memorial being erected, a lady admiring the work asked who's the lady at the top? Ah, said a man, that's the lady that gave Starley his first order for a tricycle. With a sly grin!

I'd have been regularly ducked as a scold/witch if I'd been around back then. Glad I'm in the 21st century!

During the days of the early fairs, the swings, roundabouts were held on Greyfriars Green, where the Starley memorial was erected - near "the five posts" known as 'Cape Horn' or 'Cape Horn Corner', from the lady who kept the school there.

Around 1340 the Greyfriars that settled in Coventry chose a beautiful southern setting, that flourished with flowers, shrubs and herbs. At the time, Edward III reigned - it was a time of pageantry, art and music, and royal castle gardens made more beautiful. His Queen had a special herber, and they brought over the first rosemary bush from Antwerp, for its medical virtues. So now the friars had rosemary alongside tall frothy angelica, for flavouring and flatulence, candied made sweets, and its seeds, when dried and burnt, to perfume a room, Lavender bushes for bath oils, and a special perfumed 'pink' that the friars spiced drinks with. They also had great jugs with perforated spouts, forbearer of the watering can.