Gosford Street

Anne, the two photos are looking in the same direction but the newer picture is more west than the other. There were two places where the road narrowed. The first is at the New Inn, the decrepit building to the left of the old photo. The corner is just off camera. The newer photo shows the rebuilt/refurbished New Inn from the side not the front. The second place where the road narrowed was originally St Georges Hall and the guard house for the gate. This survived after the gate was demolished but was then knocked down and replaced with that funny looking factory you see in the old photo. It took me ages to work that out . Even if the newer photo had been placed to see round the New Inn, the factory had been demolished by then.

Many thanks to you all for your contributions. I did not know the post office had moved. Thank you Dutchman for that. Perhaps the pillar box in the earlier picture is the one next to 35.

There's No.34 in the 1939 census: 32 Greenway, Thomas (grocer) Court #13 33 Forrester, Margaret (fancy needlework) Court #14 33/a Peck, Sidney (cafe) Court #15 35 Preston, John 36 Horrobin, George

I am sure there was a well with a pump (like the one that used to be outside St Mary's Hall) so could this be it, and not a post box I wonder?

You can see the post office/Blue Pig in this photo. Here it is again, just to the left of the cart. 34/35 is part obscured by the cart. The New Inn is way down the hill on the far right

It was definitely a post box as this close-up shows: The tall building behind it is the Malt House which was demolished to allow road-widening. There may have been a pump and horse trough outside the New Inn which looks similar to the Malt House from some angles. Various maps show a letterbox next to the New Inn as well which would correspond to there being a post office next to Luckman's at one time.

Yes, there are a few images showing a post box on the corner of the New Inn. I think they moved it about deliberately to make it harder for me to work out what was where.

It moved quite a few times from what I can tell. In the earliest pictures it would have been outside an address between No.60 and No.64

Dutchman please tell me how you came by the 1939 Census? There should have been one in 1941 (every ten years) but the War intervened and the latest Census I know to be available is 1911. Would be wonderful if 1939 exists on-line for Coventry. (I was one year in August of that year so two years old at the time of the bombing of Coventry.

A transcript of the Gosford Street entries was posted on another forum in response to a query: RootsWeb No other streets were listed.

Thanks again Dutchman for this fascinating Directory entry for Gosford St. By 1939 my Atkins family had moved to Herbert's Row.

According to old maps Herbert's Row ran north off Gulson Road and had disappeared by 1937. There was however a very similar row only a short distance away deep behind Gosford Street in Court #26.

Thanks for the map Dutchman, I never knew exactly the site of Herbert's Row and that it was so near to the Workhouse site in fact I thought it was near where the Crown Cinema used to be in Far Gosford St. This is excellent. Thank you.

Sorry, not a very clear picture from the newspaper archive, but 100 years ago they were still knocking buildings down to build monstrous new ones.

Good find Anne Here is a repost of the picture in the Aviss Brothers thread showing the buildings which were demolished.