Rover Showroom / Food Office / Intershop / Litten Tree

1965, as mentioned above.

Thanks - good on yer! Foulkes must have closed quite a bit later still then, early 70s, I guess.

M'mm, had a look at some of the other pics, too. Flinn's - that was where my 21st birthday present came from, a Rolex Submariner. Still got it. Does Flinn's still exist?

Nope, same year, 1965, to allow the construction of Benley's. Three Tuns was 1 Warwick Row. Foulkes was 1a Warwick Row.

This is scanned from "Coventry in the 1930s & 40s" by Deborah Keene. The Food Office was the subject of the October competition on the CWK 205/CCT Society (Coventry Corporation Transport) forum/website to win a model Midland Red bus, so I did some research! I'm too young to remember it! but Deborah Keene states that the food office was in Smithford Street. I think it was in the Barracks Market next to the bottom end of the City Arcade. The top end of the Arcade was in Smithford Street. If you were going to the Food Office by bus, you would alight in Hertford Street, near the Geisha Cafe and cut through to the Market. I answered the competition correctly but so did many others, so the winner was drawn from a hat! I didn't win but I bought a bus on ebay

The 1950 GPO Telephone Directory lists the "Food Control Office" in Warwick Row I suspect that this office replaced a temporary one referred to above and is the one I remember 1953 Telephone Directory : The Three Tuns no 1 Food Control Office no 1a Reform Club no 5 I know that Lee Beesley was no 6 and Hansons no 7

That picture has always puzzled me. Thanks for explaining it. The "Japanese" clue was a bit of a giveaway

According to city planning records 1a the old Rover showroom built by Garlicks in 1911 but refaced in 1955 for use as A. D. Foulkes sanitary ware showroom after previously having been used as "offices", which would tend to confirm what is posted above. This bit surprised me, the same building has been used successively by Rover, the City Council, Foulkes, Benleys, Intershop and The Litten Tree with very little structural alteration! The only mystery now is when did the food office move from the Barracks Market to Warwick Row?

Dutchman, I remember Benleys first being in Gosford St, in an old semi derelict building, on the left hand side leaving the city. I thought their building was new in Warwick Row/Barracks entrance, or at least a new frontage. My sister worked for Woolworths in the temporary building, approx where BHS is now. I think the food office was to the left of this, roughly where they put Mac Fisheries. You could then walk through into the old Barracks market. I could be wrong, but that's how I seemed to remember it.

MR - did you go into the "Food Control Office" in Warwick Row to get your ration book? I'm asking because it may have housed the admin staff, but wasn't necessarily where the books were handed out. I don't think the books were collected from the Food Advice Centre, either; and I don't remember it being there - Hurrell's hut-cum-stall was roughly where the Food Advice Centre was, as I remember it about 1950 to 52. And Hurrell's stall wasn't clad in corrugated iron; it was wood-framed with plywood infill panels, so can't have been a re-use of the same hut. The frame was painted a pale blue, and the panels cream. It must have been about 10 or 12 feet across the front, and maybe a little deeper than that. There was a lift up flap that covered the counter when it was closed, and access through an end door. But it's quite possible that there was another, bigger, temporary building further over to the right and much nearer to Hertford St, where I remember going for the ration books with my mother. That photo really brings back memories though! I can hear the strangely amplified footsteps of people walking through there today still. But that frontage is very much as I remember it, the white facing tiles (?) or were they marble (?), and the clock above. I think it was a great shame that it was demolished, because it was almost unharmed by the bombing, just glass broken in the arched roof, and that could easily have been replaced. Going back to the Food Office, do you remember the distinctive smell of the ration books? I don't know if it was the ink or the paper, but nothing else smelt like that! I can smell it in my mind, but I couldn't begin to describe it. And dutchman, I'm surprised that Flinn's went. Did the business close down? I remember Mr Flinn well. He wore round horn-rimmed glasses, and was balding. Looked just like a well-known character actor, whose name escapes me, but I'll probably remember later.

Sorry KL, not old enough to have been there - I recall the bus stop being referred to as "The Food Office" and I know a little of the history of the buildings to know that it was there You clearly have much more personal reminiscences of those days, with which I cannot compete It all makes very interesting reading, and is just what this forum is all about - do keep them coming!

I was just looking again at the photo. I notice two things about it: 1) The overhead power cable. I wonder where that went! Could have been to the Barracks Market - most likely - but could have gone elsewhere too. 2) There is a corrugated roof behind the Food Advice hut. I'm wondering if that's where the ration books were collected from, because the Advice hut wouldn't be anywhere near big enough - especially when you bear in mind the population of Coventry at the time, plus all the people who were brought in to repair the war damage (most from Ireland). (A little aside: my mother recalled the Irish War Damage repair men coming after the 1940 raids, our house was somewhat knocked about - ceilings down, windows blown in, some tiles off the roof etc; she remembered going out to do some shopping, and coming back to find them stretched out asleep in the front room, one on the trestle table they'd brought with them. She wasn't too impressed, nor my dad, who chucked them out after a bit, and did a lot of the repairs himself. War Damage repairs used really poor quality materials, and you can still see it on tiled roofs; the War Damage tiles rapidly went nearly black, making dark patches among the red tiling.) 19FoleshillRd - We lived near Broad Lane, and came into town on the No 11 bus, getting off in Corporation St, then walking up Smithford St, through the arcade, and then sometimes went to the Geisha for refreshments, especially when the ration books were to be collected - because of the queues - going back around the corner from Hertford St into the Barracks Market yard, where we went to get the ration books. It was certainly in the Barracks Market area somewhere!

Not a competition, mate!! I think it's important to get our memories down like this while we're still here to do so. They may not be perfect, but that doesn't make them any less important.

Are you perhaps confusing it with "Astley's"? I thought it was new too and it's not unknown for planning documents to be wrong by as much as ten years! The council's record keeping is shoddy beyond belief. Interesting

Sorry, but I haven't been in the centre of Coventry since about 1984, and it doesn't mean anything to me where NHS or Mac Fisheries is/was. Could you clarify please? I seem to remember Mac F was in Shelton Square?