Spon End

Sorry. What I meant to say was that from across the street you saw only stairs - no box office. The box office was at the top of the stairs.

I never saw inside but it was tarted up and reopened as a bingo hall in 1963, with smartly uniformed commissionaire and rope barrier outside.

A very small image but most of these buildings still exist apart from 'Cleavers Saddlers' which by my reckoning is now the gap where 'Coventry Denture Repairs' now sit - in the gap across to the old Malt Shovel pub. Not sure what happened to it to create that gap.

Here's an unusual 'vista' - looks like someone climbed up on to the tracks! I was interested to see those buildings next to The Dyers Arms.

They were pulled down to make a car park for the neighbouring church!

Interesting - in later years, there was the Gate Saddlery, near the bend by the cobbles as the road bends by the bridge over the Sherbourne. It was run by Audrey Smith, who had riding stables on the Kenilworth Road, and her boyfriend/partner.

Would that be the Bethel Church? That's where an uncle of mine, who was divorced, met his second wife, also a divorcee. They couldn't get (re)married in the church, and were ostracised by other church members, so they joined the Salvation Army, in which they remained. My uncle's funeral was even held at the Citadel, which was joined behind the old CET building.

Yes it is Slim. They've since run into planning problems while trying to redevelop the car park. It's apparently the site of some important historical ruins.

This is the opening of the Bethel Church in 1940. Was it bombed in the war as it does not look like the pictures of it you can see on Google. It was also made of timber and asbestos on a brick base which might be adding to the problems of development !

It was knocked off its brick base in 1940 by a bomb blast which which destroyed the buildings opposite. The congregation surrounded the timber superstructure and manually lifted it back on to its base. The original timber church was destroyed by fire a few years ago (thought to be arson) and recently rebuilt along with an academy.

Hi everyone, I don't know if I'm doing this right but here goes. I took a movie on the old 8mm of this incident if anyone is interested. Cheers https://youtu.be/MVyYBF0ccgg

Excellent John, thanks!

Yes, brilliant - thanks post that Not a hi-viz or hard hat in sight

Well done Kerbstone for the original and well done for putting it online. It's things like this that will inform the future about the past.