Longford (inc. The Red Hills)

So what are the chimneys and large hole in the ground, opposite Grindle Road then Mick as I thought the chimneys were the cement factory.

Morgana, I guess that the big hole is the brick pit and the chimneys are part of the brick works. During the 70's that corner of Oban Rd and Sydnall Rd was the site of George's Coaches - just a flat piece of ground. To see where the concrete works used to be you need to go into Grindle Rd where you will see older terraced houses on both sides. The row on the left is shorter than the row on the right. It is in this area on the left between Grindle Rd and the canal where I think the concrete works was situated, although by the 70's it was just an area of waste ground. Hope this helps. Roger

Ahrr thank you Not Local as the number 6 on the picture is more by the chimneys than by Grindle Road that explains it. Yes my cousin son lived in Grindle Road on the left, the waste ground is probably where they have now built the new flats overlooking the canal.

Sorry to chuck a spanner in the works about the location of the Concrete Works folks, my friend who was bought up in Longford and spent most of his life there says that it was on the other side of Longford Road, near the iron railway bridge and what is now Spires Industrial Estate (Ibstock Road) and now come to think of it I can remember it being there as well

Normk Sorry to chuck a spanner in the works about the location of the Concrete Works Lol Normk I don't know about a spanner but I think a monkey wrench too as it seems it jumped over the road the yard of Grindle Road too This is where Not Local and Mick said the cement yard was on the waste ground now built on. This is where they must have made the concrete moulds then

Dear 20-A, I think you may have resolved the matter. The research undertaken by MickW, which research I have found - in one case, to my personal enlightenment, impeccable - may have relied detrimentally (for MickW) on public records. I do know, from personal experience, that THE CONCRETE compound started on the immediate Bedworth side of my grandmother's & great-grandmother's homes (semi-detached, and bearing to this day the legend "Fern Villas") at 300 & 302 Bedworth Road. That some accurate in general contributor described this road as Longford Road, but remembered THE CONCRETE, is not consequential, for all that Longford Road ends at the Longford Bridge and Bedworth Road commences at that point, since their/your placement of THE CONCRETE was entirely accurate. Around that point in the Coventry Canal, beyond the point where it lay in close proximity to the backyards of the houses, the canal took a serious turn towards Sutton Stop, deepening the lots of THE CONCRETE (and the house beyond) in the Bedworth direction. Your suggestion that the Grindle Road location was in to decorative concrete, as opposed to the merely functional of the Bedworth Road plant, is an idea that never crossed my path before, but then I delivered newspapers along Grindle Road and never spotted the company's premises, decorative or functional. Among the terraced houses opposite THE CONCRETE when I was a boy, was one that was a shop - Mrs Marshall's, as I recall - and that shop was the default position for every Sunday morning's "dinner" preparation missing items - gravy salt, for example. But Mrs Marshall kept "pub hours", and - on Sunday - did not open until 12noon. But that, as they say, is another story. MickW of Nuneaton, for all his professional background in engineering rather than history, is an unrelenting pursuer of the truth of the past, and I commend him with the full-force of my commendation of Dutchman, as an indispensable contributor to this forum. For Mary Mc in New Zealand, I say that all MickW's contributions are reliable. As some of us in Canada are given to saying: Whattaguy! But I do believe your dad probably worked on Bedworth Road. The Lady Lane caravan site gave me two of the best friends ever I had, friends who introduced me to the Brandon Bees (and, of that, I'll have more to say on a posting on that thread), but I perhaps should tell you that - from my lofty view as a teenager, that site was among the finest ever I have seen. The caravans (trailers, we on this side of the pond would call them) were kept in wonderful condition, and the men (remember, this was the 1950s, so few women) who left each morning for work were a credit to any community. My brother, after service in Malaya with the Royal Lincolns, started his married life in a caravan on that estate. I loved the place, for beyond the site, beyond Salem Baptist Church, were the Meeting Fields and the Red Hills. Ah, the majesty of those places!

Can any one say if this was an air raid shelter on side of Coventry Canal by Lady Lane or was it used as a garage, it doesn't belong to any building it's just stuck in the little wooded area side of the canal.

I wouldn't have thought it was an air raid shelter Morgana as I doubt those thin corrugated sheets would offer much in the way of protection.

My better half says it looks like half a nissen hut.

Not sure if anyone is aware but Exhall brickworks were the otherside of the bridge but I don't know the exact location

Hi Deanocity I was always lead to believe the brick works were over by where they blew the gas tower near the Ricoh up near Holbrooks way.

Planning records suggest the Nissen Hut was erected circa 1952 as a workshop but later became the centre of a car wrecking business, much to the annoyance of local residents.

I assume you are talking about Charity Banks brickworks? This was about where the M6 flyover is now.

Thank you Greg for that information on where the brick works were.

I always thought Charity Banks Brickworks was on Leicester Road, Bedworth. Partly owned by the late Norman Wisdom