Ironmonger Row

Blimey, just over 4 years ago that was posted! Hadn't seen it before but If I'm right that's the back of Owens with Timothy White's on the left hand side of the picture top of Trinity Street (now Wetherspoons)

I always thought that the old Owen Owens fronted Ironmonger Row, and the new Owens rear door fronted the other side of Ironmonger Row, but memory???

Hi all Yes. For a time, the downstairs café had its own entrance off Ironmonger Row, I believe. It didn't last long as it lessened the advertising element of having to walk past merchandise.

"Dead" or "wasted" space - view across Ironmonger Row to Cross Cheaping (from our breaky venue!)

An ideal position for the modern-day Coventry Cross if ever there was.

So could someone give us a preview of how it would look if/when the Cross is moved by the Council?

The Coventry Cross was the marking of the market place as indeed was all markets.

There are plans to move the Cross to Ironmonger Square.

Yes, it was on the tv breakfast news last week. They said there is a lot of opposition to the plan.

Philip, you are right about that entrance's location. As a very young boy, I went into the café weekly with my mother, after shopping. I had a bottle of pop (no doubt Lants), and maybe a few chips, whilst Mum could have a cuppa and a fag. On one occasion a very dirty (face black), scruffy (and no doubt smelly) old bloke in a cap sat down opposite us. I was intrigued, and could not help watching, despite Mum's pleas not to look at him. Without taking his eyes off Mum (he was leering, I later realised), he unscrewed the top off the sugar jar and tipped half its contents into his tea cup, stirred it into a thick sickly paste, then tipped it into his saucer. He then raised the saucer to his mouth and slurped the contents down! Mum was horrified. She must have felt uncomfortable because he never stopped leering at her face. Later in life I learned that was an old tramp's trick, i.e. to purchase a cuppa for say 2d, then ingest tons of free sugar for energy, in place of proper food. My recollection of the timescale is a bit different. That entrance to the café was still in use just before I left school, over 10 years later.

There isn't 'a lot of opposition', there is 'loud' opposition from the usual subjects who get hysterical over nothing.

I agree, that's almost certainly the case. I also think that most of the opposition isn't so much to the principal of re-locating the cross nearer to Cross Cheaping, but to the cost involved. One article said that the move was to make room for more customers at the back of Cathedral Lanes - if that is so, then surely shouldn't that business be footing the bill? Personally I'd be in favour of improving the bland area behind Primark. Although Ironmonger Square isn't quite the original location for the old Coventry Cross (that would've actually been near the Broadgate front entrance to Primark), I feel that it's more representative of where it belongs. I do, however, baulk somewhat at the cost to the public - just one tenth of the claimed £150,000 would keep the Guildhall open for the rest of the year, for example!

Crosses were erected, at which merchandise of all kinds - brought from far and near - was bought and sold. Such spots are hallowed with a thousand recollections of the past. At Coventry, Kings and Queens, princes and princesses, have been loyally welcomed by the citizens at their cross. 1303 is the first date mentioned of a cross at the corner of Broadgate, the land in the occupation of Richard le Spycer.