Broadgate

Well done!

MAJOR ON GOING POLICE INCIDENT IN COVENTRY CENTRE THIS MORNING.

Hello Oh it was nothing out of the ordinary. City streets taped off for fifteen hours after a couple of cars raced around Trinity St, The Burges & Hales St shooting their fire arms off at 1am.

Ah! Coventry has progressed to the 21C. Forgive me if I regress to village life at "Chateau Gamin de Choeur" in France, our millennia arch enemy, for the next two months, still a few years behind us in social breakdown. (I hope).

Hello, When Broadgate was Broadgate.

A sight to behold - as always.

Hello Neil, I have a bone to pick with St Andrew's University who hold the Valentine archive. They have failed to correct the caption for this image despite your asking to change it and their declaration 'The University cares about accurately recording and cataloguing our collections data, and we welcome input from you to make the quality of our records even better'. So today I have asked them again as follows: The caption for this image should be Smithford Street NOT Smithfield Street. Please note that (a) there are other images of this street correctly captioned amongst the 75 listed and (b) I know of another person, representing the Historic Coventry website, who in early June 2025 requested that this be re-titled Smithford Street. Why is it still Smithfield Street? Incidentally on 6 August I spent a considerable amount of time going through their photographic archive and identified another 11 images all of central Coventry 1939 and all captioned Untitled, so nobody would ever be able to find them without a lot of sleuthing. None are included in the 75 listed I referred to above. I emailed the University about this and had an automatic reply: Thank you for your interest in the University of St Andrews University Collections and Museums. This inbox is monitored once a week, and we endeavour to get back to all enquiries within 15 working days. It remains to be seen when they reply but I won't hold my breath I imagine they are understaffed and overworked!

Rob recently shared with me a collection of pics and cuttings. I was aware that the Self Sacrifice statue by William Reid-Dick had been commissioned by William Bassett-Green in 1936 but this is the first time I have seen the original plan for the statue before everything changed just a few years later............ I need to dig more in to what 'Cross' that refers to in that era though. This was taken from a Telegraph cutting dated 04/08/37 -

We've posted a few circa late 70s/80s of the ruins that were left on display for a while in Broadgate including the old well but this one has cropped up. I can remember walking across that 'dip' at a time when I really wish I had taken more notice of what was left lying around!

Scott Duffin on FB has allowed me to pass this one on. It's another colourised pic that appears to be 2 photos 'stitched' together but gives a sad reality to the devastation caused. Is that some sort of temporary round water tank they have installed? Also some nice detail shown on the Market Hall Clock Tower -

I think that the water tank is an Emergency Water Supply for the fire brigade to use to fight future fires. These were set up all over the city after the November 1940 blitz and were either purpose made tanks or the cellars of bombed buildings. I recall someone telling me that there was one tank at the back of Owen & Owen and another one in Sandy Lane, Radford.

This is another case of tinkering I fear. It's two photos merged into a sort of panorama shot but although that's obvious from the clouds not aligning the foreground is difficult to work out. I believe the round structure IS a water tank but it's not the usual construction for an EWS holder. They were normally steel and rectangular when erected in a street or road. This one looks more like what was called a 'dam' (circular and made of strong canvas) yet could be more permanent. Rather a mystery. In other photos taken from roughly the same spot ie overlooking Cross Cheaping, there WAS a steel rectangular tank built on the island in front of Owen Owen, otherwise the round container could have been a temporary dam on the curved pavement immediately in front of Owen Owen, a pity the photo(s) doesn't extend to the east a bit more.

This picture shows the aftermath of the 1939 IRA bombing however I've zoomed in as I hadn't noticed that lovely (Knight/Mermaid?) stained glass panel in Dunn & Co before -

I took this snap of Broadgate on the 13th August 1974:

A further two snaps I took of Broadgate. Another from August 1974 and the other from August 1976: