Hillfields

Thank you for this picture, I don't remember the pub but I recognize those 3 storey houses with the top shops, up the street,

Looking at the Pub history pages on here, the Half Moon Inn on Yardley St was bombed in 1940, and the council built a 10 storey block of flats on the site later on.

I think that corner and the one catty corner were our playgrounds.

I think this one is too generic to pinpoint the exact location but another thanks to the ©Elizabeth Tyler collection - she's pretty sure it's somewhere in Hillfields but gives us a great impression of the social history of the time and area -

More thanks to © Elizabeth Tyler's camera circa 1963. I've added this to the Hillfield's thread as she believes this was taken from one of the new blocks however I can't pinpoint currently - You would think the church would be St Peters but the 'Spire' looks totally different (St Peters being castellated rather than a pointed Spire) - If you zoom in centre left there is a sign which appears to say Groves & (Son?) but I can't see that on the directories as need to know the Street on the ones I have -

I'm pretty sure that, as you say, that's the wrong spire for it to be St Peter's. Also, if the photo was taken from a block of flats, I think the streets are running in the wrong direction for it to be looking towards Charles Street. The taller blocks of flats, like Pioneer House, weren't built until later in the sixties. I'm happy to be proved wrong. It's an intriguing picture. It looks like a Lowry painting.

I think that the church spire could be the church at the corner of Stoney Stanton Rd and Eagle Street, can't think of the name but the plaque on the wall says that it was a Wesleyan church. If this is the case, the road running into the distance from left to right with all the chimney pots is Stoney Stanton Rd so the derelict houses would have been close to the now demolished blocks of flats in Hillfields.

Great shout Not Local It's definitely that Church as the Spire matches. And with additional comments on Elizabeth's FB post it's now been identified as having been taken from Stevens House looking North. The House with the hole in its roof was on Spencer Street. I'm reminded by this post of the excellent Hillfields History Group pages on Flickr - they have a near identical image and some recent additions so definitely worth checking out if you have not visited there for a while.

Hello, There's a fabulous array of pictures on F/B True Coventrian site, posted by Debbie. Too many to copy but lovely to see.

©Elizabeth Tyler once more - believed to be Hillfield's again. Little to go on to fully establish the location but a good social historical image -

© Historic England Brook Street circa 1950-'59

I was brought up in old Hillfields. The high-rise buildings are a total disaster. No doubt some in the Council just wanted to trash all memories.

I have had trouble being able to secure my typing for some time, so, hope this note secures!! Thank you everyone.

I can certainly see why not all of those streets & buildings could remain. Modern living standards have made those places "unliveable" & the cost to bring them up to some kind of decent standard would have been huge. Having the photos, whilst not the same as the buildings, is still very fascinating. The heart breakers are those in the city centre & close surrounds which were firstly removed by the Council planners during the 30's, the bombings & then the eager to renew wants of the following councils. It's very strange to think that my Nan would have seen those streets & buildings but I never got to ask her about it all.

Cities need high rise buildings, otherwise they just spread out. Unfortunately the quality hasn't always been there. Especially critical in tall buildings. Plus it's hard to get occupants to treat those buildings like they were their own valuable asset. It only takes one bad person (or their kids) to ruin the experience for everyone else. Moreover if the people in charge of the overall building (lifts etc) don't do their part, nobody cares about the rest. The buildings demolished in the 30s, often needed to go. They were either thrown up quickly and were crumbling or they were very old but new repair techniques had accelerated the rot they'd avoided for centuries. The sewerage systems were grim to non existent. As Gumnut writes, preserving old buildings and making them ready for the 20th century, never mind the 21st, takes a lot of love and money. Hillfields was one of the first areas to be developed in the late 1700s, early 1800s and the quality reflected the urgency for living space at the time. Coventry after the war embraced a very brutal modern style that has aged badly. The refurbs of the tower blocks and the new ones aren't terrible (give or take what they clad them in - Grenfell style) but there still hasn't been an attempt to create a coherent style for the city. A tower block can be seen for miles and nothing makes a townscape more discordant than a hundred different styles and colours. Each planning decision seems to be decided on its own merit and not on whether it fits with the rest. Coventry as far back as 1800 seems to have chosen novelty over overall aesthetics. This seems to have accelerated after the war. It's as if the planners thought 'well it's broken, we should throw it all out and do something totally different'.