Henrietta Street

Hello, Am trying to find any pictures of Henrietta Street that were taken pre-WWII as the street was destroyed during one of the many bombings during WWII. Specifically interested in #24 and/or #55 as these were addresses of my family members. Thank you kindly, Mike

Hello Mike. Is that Henrietta Street in Birmingham? I worked there for the ambulance service for 28 years starting in mid 1960s and as you say there no residential property in the area. I don't think that there is a Henrietta St in Coventry.

Wasn't Henrietta Street in the Red Lane area. It's a familiar name to me.

Henrietta Street is off Red Lane very near and running parallel to Stoney Stanton Road. My father worked at Patternmakers in Henrietta Street for many years.

I walked up Red Lane every morning to Herberts and recall a bakery (Storer's maybe?), was that situated in Henrietta St?

There are still some of the old houses in Henrietta Street. The first of the even numbers appears to be number 28. There were other old houses still standing and still in use up until the mid 70's when they were demolished and replaced by the new houses. I think that number 24, which is of interest to Mike, was therefore still standing until that time. I have two recollections of visiting those now demolished houses in the early 70's - one house was in really good condition but the other one was in a terrible state, almost falling down, still with the gas lighting (that is why I remember it), full of very old furniture and bits and pieces from the 1920's and 30's, freezing cold, damp, and with an old chap living on his own. Now we preserve and rebuild old houses to retain the character of the street but back then it was quite normal just to knock them down and build new. Just one or two derelict houses in a row of terraced houses would condemn the whole block to be demolished. There were also some pretty rough looking houses around the corner in Smith Street but they all appear to have survived. At about the same period a house in Red Lane actually fell down of its own accord - a mate of mine working nearby thought there had been an explosion particularly as the road was filled with dust but it was just a combination of dry rot, wet rot, and neglect.

Tom Farndon was born at 16 Henrietta Street in 1910

Here's a couple of images showing Henrietta Street, the first is for 1937 and I suppose is pretty much intact. The second is for 1955 and there are some holes in it.

There are also a couple of entries in the 1939 register for Dodds in Henrietta Street. No. 24 Henrietta Street, Thomas I R Dodd, b.1895, Permanently Incapacitated, married. Rose E Price (Dodd), b.1927, Laundry Wash House Scrubber, Heavy Worker, married. Thomas W Dodd, b.1923, Sheet metal worker, married. No. 28 Henrietta Street, Harry Dodd, b.1883, Millwright, Drop Forging Trade, Heavy Worker, widowed. Eric H Dodd, b.1917, Packing in Car Stores, single.

Henrietta Street was built by or for Thomas Smith of Smiths Stampings which was at the end of Smith Street on the canal, Henrietta was his wife. The stamping works was by the canal to enable the forgings to be transported to the Black Country for heat treatment, production was mainly bicycle parts. There is in the local studies section, central library, a book on the history of Smith's Stampings, a good read.

I think you will find that Storer's cake shop was on the corner of Peel Street and Cromwell Street. My mum worked there for a short time in the late 40s.

If there are many older residents still about, they may remember me delivering morning papers and Evening Telegraph in the late 40s possibly early 50s from the corner paper shop. A bit confused now as to whether the shop was corner of Henrietta or Smith Street ?

In the early 70's if you walked along Red Lane from the Three Horseshoes then the first shop on the corner of Henrietta Street operated as the base for a van hire company. I can't remember the name but they had dark blue vans, mostly Ford Transits. The boss man lived further down Henrietta Street on the left. Later the premises changed use, but I can't recall what it became. I am almost sure that the shop on the opposite corner of Henrietta Street and Red Lane was a newsagent but I can't recall the name. There must have been corresponding shops on the corner of Smith Street, but I can't remember any details. There were far more houses in Smith Street than Henrietta Street.