Little Palace Yard

Yes, Linda, but I don't know exactly which one as there were changes over the years. It was the plot discussed in this post. About halfway up the left side of the plan.

The whole photo set from the garden behind LPY is fascinating to me, not least because of my family connection. There must have been more than the random few of the Arbour and the stone animals on the walls, including a complete garden view. The hunt continues!

Apart from the tiger, I don't think the animals were there by the time the factories were built up around the plot. The garden went from one large, ornamental garden to a mix of small veg plots and temporary buildings. The photos might date from a point where it stopped being a proper garden. It was not unusual for photos to record things before they went, so there may be no other photos to be found.

Do you think the ornamental garden was always part of LPY, Helen?

I think that there was an extensive ornamental garden from the time of its designation as the LPY, possibly even bigger than on the 1850 map and certainly bigger than when your relatives lived there. Before that I'm not sure. LPY was built south of the original city wall. Urban sprawl basically. I don't know if the plots were in any way special until the mid 1600s, early 1700s when the rich started buying up smaller plots and combining them to form fancy mansions and bigger gardens. As LPY was a renovation rather than a new build, it was made up of original medieval buildings and addons. They were then divided to form homes for many as the rich moved out and city filled up. The scale of the original homes is very hard to determine. Buildings were subdivided and then recombined in similar or different ways. Often a larger building running along a street was divided and then the portions were extended back along the plot, but sometimes the buildings were originally built to run down the plot. Without examining the buildings it's very hard to know how they'd started. Even when the plots were vegetable gardens the owners often made them as pretty as possible and included flowers, especially as many were believed to have medicinal properties. Most would have kept birds, including pigeons and a pig was usually part of the set up. By the time the LPY was formed the need to grow their own food was gone but veg and fruit can be pretty in their own right so would have been included. Looking on the 1850 map, the plot to the south of LPY looks like it was linked but earlier there may have been a link to the east, through the arbour. That plot looks connected to other plots to the north, but not to the Palace Yard.

Great stuff Helen - thanks again. I need to zoom on that map! Rosemary, aka coventry49 and my relative, sent me this hand drawn map of LPY. Rosemary must be one of the few members who still remembers the Court. As a reminder, Ray and Win at No.7 - Ray Yardley was one of my grandfather’s brothers - Rosemary's connection to me comes from his wife Win who was Rosemary's aunt (think I have that correct Rosemary!)

Unfortunately, Neil, that map isn't zoomable but the later two are. Search map Much Park and pick the similar monochrome maps.

Hi all All of the board of health maps are very zoomable on Coventry Atlas

Thanks, Ben. Does that include the one Helen shared above? I couldn't see it. It’s just that it contains some interesting court/yard names I wanted to view.

I think it's all of them, Neil, but it is sluggish for me. The hard part was knowing which to make high quality, so I did it for all of them.

I've been in email conversation with Rosemary (coventry49) who as I mentioned remembers the yard which has triggered me into some more research. I've known about this image and others of this building to the left - in fact I think I've asked about what it might have been before. It’s referenced on Coventry Digital as being with the Much Park Street collection looking at Civic Centre 4, however I hadn't realised until now after picking out the same building on this BFA aerial how close it was to what would've been the northern face of the garden of LPY. The small box building with the three windows seems to be a later addition, however there are definitely the remains of an older wall to the right of that - the final final glimpse of that old yard wall, do you think, Helen? If Rosemary sees this, how ironic is the registration of that old Rover? For my grandfather’s brother, Ray Yardley, who lived at no.7 LPY, his wife (Rosemary's closer relation) was called Win!

G Suffix 1968! I think you’re right Neil that does look like the remains of a very old wall & from BFA it is in the right area of the rear wall of LPY. I suppose it’s not still there? RJ

Long gone Rosemary - it was all cleared for the Civic centres. The LPY spot was a scrub car park for many years until it was all developed early 80's for the new Courts complex where I ironically worked for a few years from 1988'ish.

Think that first one proves it Those pics are so much better in that full sizing Ben!!