Wheatley Street School

Anyone on here go to Wheatley Street School around about 1950 until 1955 ? Anyone remember a teacher by the name of Mr Jones ? I can still remember to this day, the old fifties smell of that school, the smell of Tarmac in the playground and I think it must have been Jeyes Fluid inside the school.Funny how smell memories stay with you. Peter.

I have been researching Wheatley Street School, but have yet to find a decent image of the north (Boys) side, or of the Hall inside. Can anyone help? Any images of this school, once the most expensive in Britain, would be welcome.

Was that school once called Priory High or am I getting mixed up ?

Hi Dreamtime, Hi all Priory High was in Ford St, whereas Wheatley St. was in Wheatley St. There was interaction between the two schools though.

Here's a postcard, sent in 1905

Hi Midland Red. A lovely picture. I once attended Priory High when it was being used as a Tech-College anex.

The gap between the two schools was the original Fairfax Street. The two schools were eventually merged and the name transferred to the newly opened Fairfax Street in 1963.

Hi again Is that the flour mill behind the school & what is the chimney on the right, please?

They're grand looking buildings. I take it they're long gone now?

Yes! Don't know!

The whole street has gone! The school was rebuilt on the opposite side of Cox Street with a different name.

Having read through the Record Books of this School or rather Schools, this is what I have found: After WW2, from 1945 the building in Wheatley St housed a selective (grammar) school for girls. This was known as Wheatley Street Senior Girls' School, but renamed in Nov 1947 Priory High School for Girls. In July 1955 this closed and reopened as Priory Secondary Modern Mixed. This school had a bad reputation as 20% of the pupils left with criminal records. It closed in July 1968, because of the expected noise from Ring Road construction. I do not know what happened next, but by 1977 it was an annexe of Sydney Stringer School. Can anyone help with the period 1968-77? I am assuming it may have been a Sydney Stringer annexe from 1972, when Sydney Stringer opened, but have no proof. Of course everything I have written above refers to the school or schools on the first floor. In the post war period the ground floor was used as a primary School, and this school was extended in 1949 with a new building on the site of the bombed Pupil Teacher Centre, which had become a Special School before the war. A Nursery School was still in this building in 1980. Additionally, from Aug 1967, the dark 'Covered Play Ground' on the ground floor was used as workshops by the Art Dept of Coventry Technical College. So when talking about Wheatley Street, we need to say which of the many schools housed there AT THE SAME TIME, we are talking about!

The chimney on the right is the old Priory Street baths, I remember it by the fluted top, the company I worked for at the time demolished it.

Hi, When the school closed iI know that for a short period of time it was used by the Coventry College of Art, after that I have no idea. I attended there until the college got more permanent premises at Toll Bar End. I think that is now Baginton Fields school, We had the old school that was there.

Well, I nearly had it right then, because I had a friend - Peggy Vasper - who attended Priory High in the 50's and I am sure it was an 'all girls' school then. Now i will spend the evening reminiscing through the 50's, and I did enjoy life then. Thank you all for the information.