Spon Street

Thanks HelenF, what did happen to the business?

R J Taberer were acquired in 1987 by a company called Carwood who have a head office in Binley Way. The company R J Taberer are listed in the Gazette as going into liquidation in 1991.

Thank you Annewiggy, I know Carwood well as I pass them on the way to other companies who do machine work for me in Hotchkiss Way. I have just finished reading a small book called Hurdy Gurdy Days which is all about living in a court on Little Park Street, those were HARD times.

I don't recognise these as Spon Street.

That was my mum, that was. No electricity. No mother (she had died just after giving birth). A brutally strict father who was a bricklayer and worked from sun-up to sundown throughout the year to make ends meet. My mum spent her first 8 years in an orphanage (Hill St?). Her sister was about 7 years older and from an early age became the mother/housewife of the household. (The elder sister deliberately got pregnant at 19 so she could escape from her tyrannical father and get married.) An old tin bath (probably, more precisely, steel coated with tin) used to hang on an outside wall in the courtyard and be brought in on a Sunday for the weekly bath in front of the old coal fire. Several kettles of boiled water were needed to fill it. Before getting pregnant and leaving the household, mum's elder sister got the gas board in to fit gas lamps (they'd only had candles before). Her father was against anything that meant spending money, and when he came day one day, it was a fait accompli. He went ballistic, moaning about those "new-fangled" gas lamps!

Helen, I think it is the building in the distance on this picture. It looks like the building which was replaced by the 3 storey building. It is next to Bablake wines which was done up as previously discussed.

That's what I thought Anne but there was never a second 3 storey building to the left and the windows are wrong. It rings a bell as a scene but I can't remember where - the bottom end of Much Park Street, Cox Street or Gosford Street might be alternatives. I shall truffle through the photos and see if it comes up. It looks post war so if I've got an earlier view I don't keep the later photos.

It appears to be 58-59 Gosford Street - link

Ha, you beat me to it MR. I'll be honest I still don't recognise them or the ones next door but as I wrote, the newer stuff is unknown to me.

The building just showing on the left is The New Inn at no.57

A nice colour version of a 1823 Edward Rudge painting, that Ann posted recently. It shows a rare view of both Hill Street and Spon Street and even of St John's. The building on the left was the corner with Fleet Street and the houses that had run up the gate had been demolished by this point. The house there on the left of the painting was also demolished and a wide triangular space was formed by 1850. That lasted until Corporation Street was built. Note the end door of St John's. Link to article about Mary Ann Higgins penultimate woman to be hanged in Coventry

Has anyone come across a description or plan of the Spon Gate? I've got plenty of images from both sides but before I launch into the big build I thought it was worth asking.

There is a sketch in this book.