Lea-Francis

Spotted this nice Lea Francis in the car park at Shipston on Stour this morning. Had been driven over from Sweden via Holland for a meeting at Banbury by a very nice couple.

The Lea Francis Annual Rally takes place at Broughton Castle, Banbury, Oxfordshire, on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th June 2019. This year the weekend's events will start with a lunchtime meeting from 12 noon on Saturday at The White Horse Inn, Daisy Hill, Duns Tew, near Bicester.

Photographed today outside Tesco. A 1925 Lea Francis.

I have enjoyed members recollections of MPS. I hope this is not posted in the wrong place but I am researching the Lea Francis factory and also the Charlesworth site that they took over about 1949. Could any member provide more detail and photographs please.

Hi Prof Mike, welcome to the forum I've moved you, but there are several possible places your comment would fit. The Mr Wright topic mentions the location because it was next door but this might fit better. There is information dotted about the site eg here. If you put Lea Francis or Charlesworth in the search box top left, you'll find others though they are a bit scattered. It's not my area of interest but I do recognise where it was, so I can point you to maps and distant views of the site. eg Britain From Above Get a free login to be able to zoom in to the aerial photos. And here and here after the war. There are others. Not much by the way of photos but this shows the stretch of Much Park Street where it was. About the middle of the picture is the offices of the Phillips and Marriott Midland Brewery and the next couple of buildings fronted the car works. From Coventry Digital - lots of photos and maps, with more in the pipeline.

Welcome Mike - anything Old Cov - you are in the right place Enjoy the forum.

Thank you all. I am trying to get a feel for the street where people lived, worked and went to school. I was born in Manchester not far from the McVitie factory but such city centre streets as MPS as so different to those of today. My interest of course is Lea Francis and as yet I haven't found any satisfactory images of the LF or Charlesworth factories. I am hopefully uploading one image which may or may not be credited to this site but I would like a higher resolution image. Help will be warmly received. PS I am assisted by a friend who did his apprenticeship with LF in 1952 so I hope to have a body of useful material in time

Ahhh, I see. Charlesworth was only on the left side of the street as far as I know. Lea Francis had a cycle works on the right of your picture called the Gloria Works. Later known as Francis Barnett. There are better pictures of that but almost nothing of the buildings that had been on the left. Search for Gloria works on this site.

That's a tricky question and will vary over what time period you're talking about. From even before 1900 Coventry had a plan to remove much of the city centre accommodation because it was often poorly built and decaying. The war increased that effect. One of the reasons that factories were in the city centre was because housing had been demolished and gardens used too. There were still families in Much Park Street and a school but which were connected to which factory is a research project of its own.

Mike, have you looked at the posts for the Much Park Street topic on this site, it will give you an idea of the street and some of its occupants. There is a book about life in one of the courts in the early 1900's by a lady who lived there . I had a copy but loaned it out and never saw it again and the name of it escapes me but someone here is bound to know it.

Reading Wikipedia it looks like Charlesworth made car bodies for several companies. There is a book about Lea Francis here.. A library might be able to get you a copy.