Coventry Ordnance Works

Great pic, Neil. When you blow it up, it looks like there are two big gates into an open yard, you can see the canal, a tree and a telegraph pole through the opening. It looks like they are manhandling either a finished barrel or the casting / raw material for a barrel or some type of pole.

Post 23 shows virtually the same view and confirms that the photographer is standing in Ordnance Road up towards Priestley's Bridge.

How many years apart do we think the pictures on posts 23 & 33 are?

Mick - the date on the building is 1896. A bit of Internet research tells me that it was built for a chap called Ernest Terah Hooley for his cycle works. Mr Hooley had a financial interest in lots of businesses around Coventry which made him very rich when he sold them on but left the new owners in possession of much over valued businesses. He seemed to go bankrupt with some regularity during his life. In 1902 the factory was sold to Mulliners who developed it into the ordnance works we all recognise. There were lots of changes of ownership over the years but the factory turned out guns and other large components for the ships of the Royal Navy right through both world wars until it was finally closed sometime in the late 60's. The security arrangements were always in the hands of the Royal Naval Dockyard Police. In 1973 many of the buildings had gone but the dockyard police remained to look after the remaining empty site. I got to know the police sergeant in charge at the time who accepted the post on promotion and with the promise to be posted to the naval dockyard of his choice once the Coventry site was sold. He was a Cornishman and did tell me where his new post was to be, it was somewhere in Cornwall but I forget the details. He did tell me that during the second world war there was a lorry arriving or departing from the Smith Street gate every two minutes, 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year. The factory also had extensive railway sidings and a dock on the Coventry Canal with loading derricks just like those seen on the decks of cargo ships, they were still there in the 70's. What is the gap between the two photographs? My guess would be that the second one was taken around 1896 when the factory was yet to be completed and that the first one is sometime between 1902 and the 1920's. Is the chap in front of the picture a tram conductor on his way to work just over Priestley's Bridge?