Whitefriars Street (inc. Whitefriars Lane)

Whereabouts was the butchers as I don't recall there being one in Whitefriars Street when I lived nearby? (Mind you I didn't remember the one almost opposite me when I lived in Craven Street either! )

This thread has brought back some wonderful memories for me. I remember Mrs Hopper, as a very small child I was really scared of her, she used to wave her stick at me as my mother and I went to 'Fitters' for our shopping. It was a general grocers, and I use to play with his daughter Marilyn in the cellar riding on her bike (I didn't have a bike, we didn't have much money). Roy Fitter's daughter married a lad who worked with my husband so we met up again years later. And Mr Lynch from the pub was at my parents' wedding. I think he went to live in Margate, Kent, he ran a pub there.

Hi Baz. My gran lived at 33 Whitefriars Street, so she must have moved in after the lady from Hinckley moved out. What a small world. Pauline H.

Hi dutchman. Alan McQueen is my cousin. Pauline H

This is the first photograph of the houses in Whitefriars Street that I have seen. We lived at number 16 in the mid 1930s and I was born at Gulson Hospital. If the photograph shows number 33 I would assume that the even numbers were on the opposite side of the street. Were the houses on the "evens" side the same with the top shops? I think that I remember my mother telling me that a lady named Edith lived next door to us and I believe that Donald (?) Sproul lived at number 18.

Hi Whitefriars. Looking at the photo, what looks like a long white strip on the side of a house, no.33 was there, as there was a house missing next door to my gran (bombed I think).

I remember the grocers but there was only an old lady running it by that time (1960). She would sell you a half packet of butter if you needed it as few people had fridges in those days. She would cut right through the packet with a cheese wire. The shop was part of a former pub, hence the cellar. Would that be the Whitefriars pub, also known as "Lynch's"?

It is a very small world. What year were you around with Alan??

I knew Alan from 1960 onwards although around 1963 he left St Mary's to go to Ullathorne and we didn't have much contact after that.

When my granddaughter was twenty one recently, she gave me a book and asked me to write down my memories for her. I thought the best place to start was at the beginning. In the mid-thirties I was born in Gulson Hospital and we lived at 16 Whitefriars Street, so I am a Coventry Kid. I have been interested in the photographs showing 33 Whitefriars Street but I wonder if there is a picture in existence of the houses that have disappeared under the ring road, including number 16. I would appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction to find out more information. Thank you members, in advance.

This is the only view I have ever seen of the houses on the east side of the southern end of Whitefriars Street. Note that there is a big gap between the former Black Dog pub and the electrical shop partially caused by bomb damge. The electrical shop and houses to the south of it had also gone by the time I moved to the area in 1960.

Thank you Dutchman. It looks as if the houses on both sides of the road have top shops. I never thought to ask my mother about the house that we lived in and I do not have any photographs of our time there.

Looking at the old photo above, and not wishing to divert from Whitefriars Street, I was wondering what occupies the top level of the old Gaumont buildings at the present time, are they offices or apartments. What a great picture / movie house that used to be.

Hi Dreamtime, on the subject of the Gaumont, it is discussed at length in this topic here.