Sherbourne Hostel

As a young woman my mother was possibly conscripted as part of the WWII effort to work in one of Coventry's factories. When she married in 1943 her residential address was given as "Sherbourne Hostel, Allesley." I haven't been able to discover anything about the hostel; it may have been established as a wartime measure to accommodate women such as my mother. Does anyone have any information about the hostel?

Hi, here's some information. The pin nearest the centre of the picture shows the location. http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/eaw001164 There's also information from a google search using Sherbourne Hostel, just scroll down and choose your link.

This is an extract from this link. Mum took me to Aunt Laura's the next day. She lived at Eversleigh Rd. and we had to pass the Bablake playing fields on the bus. The craters in the field were just like mushrooms growing, there were so many. As I have already pointed out, the family were very close and our pleasures were simple. When the weather was nice, as it was during that summer, we used to go on picnics over the Allesley fields. We had to pass the barrage balloon sight at the bottom of Forfield Rd. This was in the first field, and in late 1942, Sherbourne Hostel was built here for workers who were drafted into the city. There was also Brooklands Hostel up at Haynestone Rd. and the two merged with each other to make quite a large complex. At the time I'm referring to though, the balloon was there. It used to fascinate me because we had to pass within a few yards of the spot where it was moored and when it was on the ground, it looked huge! If we didn't go to the Allesley fields, we would go to the ones up in Coundon after calling for Auntie Laura and Uncle Austin. We spent a lot of time up at their house, especially after they had my cousin Barry.

In 1917 Mr W I Iliffe bequeathed Sherbourne House to the Coventry Branch of the YWCA, which was Sherbourne Hostel. However in newspaper articles in the 1940 there appears to be men and women living there and the address is given as Holyhead Road. During the war one of my Nan's jobs in the Civil Service was to meet the girls at Coventry Station and make sure they got to the hostels.

Thanks everyone; my previous searches appear to have been not very thorough!, though I shall continue the search as I don't have the detail I should like.