Exhall

David H, that is a fine piece of history, although I lived a couple of miles away it still linked to my area, and I am grateful of your post. Why wasn't local history taught at school? Thank you David.

Thank you Kaga. I felt it was important to write something about this pub and its probable place in local history while it is still with us. Once it is gone the link has gone. At least something about it is now on this forum.

Between the Black Horse pub and the main road, there was a small building that belonged to the Dunlop, it housed several capstan drilling machines etc. I doubt more than 20 people worked there. On the opposite side of the road another small factory, about the same number of people, same machinery, except they used a type of magnifying glasses, the work was so fine, and below them, Longford side of the railway bridge, was a third small factory. I believe large factories that had been put out of action in the town transferred men and machines to small places to keep production going but I never found out if I was correct, or the reason why they sprang up in these old buildings..

I came back that way this morning purposely to have a look, and I can confirm that the pub is still there.

Demolition is imminent for the BH, a scaffold company will occupy the land afterwards.

Just driven by, the Black Horse Pub has been flattened and just a pile of rubble remains.

Did you demolish it just by driving by, Norm? (click on photo for Cov Tel article from May 2016)

Ha ha, very whimsical that was.

A sad loss of a piece of local heritage. This is one of several photos I took last month. I am sorry I won't see the old Black Horse again.

Very sad sight when I drove past yesterday. A mechanical digger was halfway through the demolition. The whole facade in the above picture had gone. Thought it had preservation status.

I would think a few Yanks would be sad too if they were alive today, they being stationed just across the road in 43/44 time.

David H I have been waiting to see if other people had comments to make about the pub. The Black Horse pub was the only pub in Coventry to have an US Army camp in the same road, which was inevitably a magnet for these men. By 1944 there was over a million American troops in Britain. Trucks and jeeps rattled over roads designed for horses and carts. A British private in those days earned something like 15 shillings a week, the same rank GI got £3.4s.0d. a week plus endless chocolate, fruit and nylons. As a result girls were easily lured by the suave cut of the Yank uniform. So this pub, for a couple of years, was fun, laughter, friendships, heartaches and tears, and the hub of American activity in Coventry. It also carried the joke "Did you hear about the new utility knickers? One Yank and they're off". It was all part of the towns' and villages' life during the second world war that I got to know.

HI MR. I will PM you, with some info I have DebbieA