Hillfields

I wonder if anyone could help regarding St Peters Church. I have a burial record for an ancestor in 1845. The record says "Burials in the Parish of the Holy Trinity/St Peters District" What I am trying to find out is a) where the grave is, b) if there is a headstone and c) who else is buried in the grave. I have contacted the Herbert History record office and they have said that St Peters has been converted into flats and Warwick records office tell me that they have no record of grave locations or who else is buried in the grave. Can anyone tell me where this St Peters is/was as I understand that there is another church with the same name still in use. If there was another St Peters, what happened to the graves and who would hold the burial records now? Thank you Debby

Hello Debbyh & welcome to our site. This might need our one-time Hillfields people to answer you. Let's hope that you find out.

Hi Debbyh, St Peters is still there or it was the last time I looked. If it is the right church you will find it at the top of Vine St. As far as I know there are still gravestones in the grounds. It used to be my old church as I lived in Raglan St. Hope this helps, PS. Just checked on Google Earth, still there and it is in Charles St. Try phoning the St Peter Centre, they might be able to help you. 024 7663 2877. You would have to go up Canterbury St. to Charles St., blocked off at Vine St.

Thank you for your messages I became confused about St Peters when I received an email from the records office telling me that the church had been converted into flats. Up until that point I thought that St Peters was the one in Charles Street area. So I assumed that there must have been another St Peters at some time previously. Thanks for the phone number, I'll give them a ring. I might even go back to the records office and see what was meant by the email.

Here's a photo for you

If you go to British History online, you might get a bit of sense out of what it says about the Parish of St Peters and Holy Trinity Parish. I can't, lol.

Finally solved it. I emailed the vicar at St Peter's. The church was sold off in 2007/8 and converted to apartments. Any remains were dug up and re-interred in the crypt at Holy Trinity. However, looking on google maps, there is still a part of the grounds that has been fenced off which still has headstones in it. It looks very overgrown. So I am wondering if all the remains were transferred or just those from graves in the area that was redeveloped into car park?

Debbyh Many of the gravestones in Coventry churchyards had their inscriptions recorded some years ago by the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry (BMSGH for short). If you contact them through their website the MI (Monumental Inscriptions) co-ordinator should be able to tell you whether St Peter's gravestones were recorded or not. The gravestones were moved to the edges of the lawns at the back of the church many years ago, well before the flats conversion took place, so that the parishioners could use the open space for church activities in an area where open spaces were at a premium. I presume that the remains were re-interred at that point. I believe that if churches intend to build on. or develop, an area of graveyard, the church is obliged to have a grave plot and MI survey conducted first.

It appears that there is some confusion about the graves at St Peters. I was told by the vicar that the churchyard was closed in 2001 and any remains were exhumed and reinterred into the crypt at Holy Trinity. The church was converted around 2007/2008 and a lot of the ground was concreted over for a car park. I have now been told by Holy Trinity that no remains from St Peters have been interred there. So what's going on? Surely someone must know what if anything happened to the graves before the conversion. Have they just been concreted over or what? The area at the front is where any surviving headstones were moved to. Seems a bit airy fairy to me. I know its 150 years, but I do have relatives buried there and would like to know what has happened to the grave

Check with the BMSGH and ask for the MI (Memorial Inscriptions) Co-ordinator for any records which may have been made.

Hillfields memories and nostalgia link - this includes an aerial photo of "Eli Green's Vernon Street Triangle"

I can see my mum and dad's shop in East Street in photograph number 6, it was an off licence owned by Flowers Brewery when we lived there. It was roughly where the entrance to the trading estate is now. I think it was a former bakery as there was a massive coal fired cooking range in the kitchen which was separate from the shop with a loft above which I assume was a flour store. The 10 or so houses between our shop and FECole & Sons were demolished in the mid sixties about a year or so after the outer wall of our shop collapsed making our shop dangerous so we moved to Wyken. I can also see the monkey park as we called it in Brook Street. This all brings back many happy childhood memories, thank you for sharing it.

Weston Street and Primrose Hill Street

Lovely clear photos Annewiggy thank you. Just on the hill Primrose Hill Street on the right of your photo used to be a jewellers where I bought my wedding ring from, 22k gold for £2.00, shows how times change.

Sylvester's had a jewellery shop down there morgana, is that the one you are referring to? But I think it was on the left of the photo...