Rover Showroom / Food Office / Intershop / Litten Tree

Yes, I think it is the original building. Lots of evidence inside to suggest it is. A stay of execution is a good start.

I presume (hope!) the Reform Club etc is staying?!

Apparently, yes, thank goodness! In the plans, the Reform Club building is the last in the row to be retained - everything north until The Empire (no, not Darth Vader's! ) is going.

Thanks, Rob. I think I've asked before but what was the Reform Club actually used for/by whom? Looks like it's just decaying accommodation now.

I've never read anything substantial about that place, so hopefully someone else on here can inform us?

I'm guessing that it was a local offshoot of the London Reform Club - here. The club was founded by Edward Ellice, Member of Parliament (MP) for Coventry and Whig Whip, whose riches came from the Hudson's Bay Company but whose zeal was chiefly devoted to securing the passage of the Reform Act 1832; it held its first meeting at No. 104 Pall Mall on 5 May 1836.[2] This new club, for members of both Houses of Parliament, was intended to be a forum for the radical ideas which the First Reform Bill represented: its purpose was to promote "the social intercourse of the reformer of the United Kingdom.

A very good and early picture of the building here. The arched doorway on the right was originally a gateway to the rear, where there was a coach house and stabling. The property was built after 1807 but before 1850, probably in the 1830s though I don't know when it became the Reform Club. Note that it was originally rendered.

The Litten Tree closed yesterday (Sunday 5th). The LTB exhibition is staying open for another two weeks (access by fire escape next to the Litten Tree entrance). Post copied from topic Coventry Pubs on 6th Feb 2023 2:00 pm

Alan Denyer - the chap behind the former Telegraph building and now LTB project - passed this one on to me yesterday. It was originally discovered by Damien Kimberley at the Coventry Archives -