Coventry Fire Brigade (inc. Hales Street Fire Station)

12a Manor House. When I came out the forces I joined A/Siddeley fire brigade, I was sent to Hales st Fire brigade to get basic training, for a fortnight we used the fire tower for hook drill a lot, old time firemen near pension time did all the odd jobs in the station unless there were a major fire. I did all this hook drill house training and the Siddeley sent me to Ansty Airfield. There was a very young Officer who held the record for stand pipe drill , believe it was 14 seconds drill, until I came along and equalled it, he was not amused. he was sent to Foleshill Station in charge and so was I two years later when I joined the city brigade, here I got the worst of the jobs. We were called out to near Shilton by the railway line to some very tall houses, on a very snowy January night, guess who had to go on top to the chimney job. but despite him there were some funny times. We had an open day, a fireman was fitting Hosepipes together, a woman asked him what he was doing, he answered fitting the male end into the female end, and she swiped him with her handbag cutting his cheek open.

Yes. Original baths on Hales Street

Helen brilliant, thank you, I often wondered why they hadn't built on Pool Meadow, thought it was that it got flooded so often, so was the timber yard next to the baths? Or was that an earlier date.? Manor House, do you have Photo's of war time of the fire station and the sand bagging,?The girls started work at the outbreak of the war, did work at the fire Station on night shift, I believe in the control room during the blitz until the phones went down, then wrote messages for boys to deliver. I thought Pool Meadow was not in use until mid thirties?anyone know?

The fire service had been wholly independent and a volunteer force since it's beginings in 1861 until 1882 when Councillor John Thomas took up the post of Captaincy. He had been a voluteer from 1864 so did have the experience for that postion. But from then on the Corporation became more involved with the brigade. The first mootings of building a new fire station was in 1898 and they were looking at land on the other side of Hales Street, before deciding on the plot where the baths had been. These things always take time so it was not until 1902 the new station opened. 1220 sq yrds of land used and with it's close proximity to the river it's foundations go down 14 feet.

Kaga. I do have the war time photo, with the sandbags but it's not 'saved' on my laptop at the moment, I will sort it out and post later.

Kaga, the sawmill was just south of the baths/fire station, on the south side of the river, off New Buildings. It predated any buildings on Pool Meadow. There were timber yards behind the sawmill and also further east under what became the Triumph Works. The marshy nature of Pool Meadow may have been the sole reason for not building on the area or it may have been tied up with grazing rights of Freemen. It was a large part of what stopped the city expanding outwards.

This was posted on FB 2yrs ago. Sadly I don't have the name of the person who posted it.

Fire station with sandbags.

20A-Manor House, thank you Can I ask, do you know when the hook ladders were fixed to the tower, I think they were fixed much later than when built, I also think the varied heights of the windows was standard heights of the old wooden ladders, but they were dangerous to work from. Working from those windows, the height of the tower was no worry to me in 1948. We had a platform about the same height in 1945 you stood on, fixed a belt round your waist with a wire attached and stepped off the platform, the end of the belt was fixed to a small windlass, with a cooling car propeller at the end. By the time it was at full speed just a few yards from the ground, it started to slow your speed of decent, not much (airborne training).

Kaga. I will need to read through my paperwork as I've a lot of information on alterations made to the fire station over the years, so will get back to you on that.

Helen Yes, and next door was Gutteridges loom/mill I believe but much earlier on, but I believe until 1937 when they built Trinity Street - pity I can't remember from being a ten year old, there was so much still there from Victorian times. I think in those times the buildings that were altered were mostly the market and the west side. But I'm thinking with Trinity Street then the war, close after whether that sawmill may have been Cartwrights that moved to the basin?

Kaga, by 1937 the river had been culverted and the timber yard was labelled sawmill but it had a building on it. The building fronting the street might have been something else. Map 1937

Post copied from topic Coventry Hippodrome / Theatre on 17th Nov 2020 2:29 pm