Coventry History...

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Re: Coventry History...

Postby Blitzkid » Wed Feb 08, 2023 3:06 pm

On the corner of Greyfriars Green and Eaton Street was a field, someone purchased the field, but not a large elm tree. It went to court, the litigation cost large sums of money, this large tree always full of sparrows, two men stood under it during a storm, the lightning struck it and killed one of them. The tree stood until they built Eaton Road.
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Re: Coventry History...

Postby dutchman » Thu Feb 09, 2023 5:34 am

Blitzkid wrote:Dutchman, the IRA bomb in Coventry was an-enforced error, a fortnight before they had set up a bomb in Leicester railway station to explode as a train full of school-kids came back from holiday. The train was ten minutes late, the bomb went off on time and the train was informed to wait, so the second target was a hurried setting, under H. Samuel's clock in Broadgate.

I never knew that, cheers Blitzkid. :cheers:

Milverton Station was also bombed and I'm sure I mentioned it somewhere in the forum but am unable to find it.
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Re: Coventry History...

Postby Blitzkid » Thu Feb 09, 2023 4:13 pm

Yes you did say about Milverton but they were small, and only a little trouble, but the Coventry bomb in Broadgate was much bigger and was to send a Statement to the NAZI people they could inflict damage on a large scale, if they were given money and explosives, but the Nazi's took little notice.

Six years later I was trained to do the same thing, sabotage, behind enemy lines, so I knew the system, and a little more, and one who helped train me, had done so himself only he had carried a bottle of germ warfare, that to be mixed in food, that would give five thousand troops Syphilis, and death within a few months, he did not use it, but no one knew what happened to that bottle, it was never disclosed, the story was not disclosed for some eighty years after the war.

Before the war you could buy books Of Sir Walter Scott--- Lawrence of Arabia---Hemingway-Churchill--- as war correspondent and the Siege of Sydney Street 1911 and much more. Today, they are books the British Library have digitalised books.
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Re: Coventry History...

Postby Blitzkid » Fri Feb 10, 2023 1:11 pm

Dutchman, the Victorian Historian T.W.Whitley mentions an archaeological dig at Gosford Green, in which they found a Roman wall and gate, Roman coins were found in Coventry as well. So did the Romans have history in Coventry? I believe they did, ( but not on the scale of Fishbourne in Sussex in 1961 ). There were many books of Coventry before the blitz, now lost and modern historians do not trace, The Benedictine Priory of Leofric's day, not only 24 monks but plants and herbs also. Yes Coventry lost it’s History through the war, no longer could you buy local books or manuscripts in the fifties and sixties.
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Re: Coventry History...

Postby dutchman » Fri Feb 10, 2023 1:18 pm

The Forest of Arden (where we are) was bounded by Roman Roads on four sides but none ran through it. Any Roman settlements would have been quite isolated. Before the middle ages the only settlement of any size in this area was Henley-in-Arden.
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Re: Coventry History...

Postby Blitzkid » Fri Feb 17, 2023 11:22 am

The forest of Arden was a Danish name, brought here by the Danish King CNUT when he destroyed Coventry in 1023 and so was the Ardennes in Normandy. He was King of England for around 13 years by sheer might of his army.

The Romans left us the legacy of paying them money in taxes. They left us with their roads, town plans and temples, baths and under floor heating. They even brought Middle Eastern gardening tools, and from Egypt came the palisades that kept desert winds from destroying crops. But there Latin names were close to old Saxon names. What you are seeing is the same as Julius Caesar saw, B.C., nothing but dense forests and clearings.
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Re: Legend of Blitzkid

Postby Blitzkid » Sun Feb 19, 2023 11:15 am

THE SAXON CITY OF COVENTRY
Did not rise from the ashes, it was buried by Donald Gibson in 1946 onwards, the proof of that is now in the Precinct he built. The 1934 adverts of the White Lion Hotel came to light some eighty years after he built over them, not one burnt building did he replace.

Donald Gibson was a Liverpool lad, that finished his schooling in the USA, and he showed it in the first un-burnt building in Coventry, Broadgate House.

Gibson had never heard of the history of Leofric or Godiva until he arrived in Coventry, 1938 and had no interest. When in Sept 1949 the statue of Godiva was unveiled, it was said that he influenced the council to ask the US ambassador's wife to do the honours.

Coventry Broadgate house, he included a coffee shop US style, not the usual chairs and tables, but settees and armchairs. About 1950 time six of us met on Sat mornings in the coffee shop, but one morning a window was opened above, the wind caught it and slammed it shut, breaking the glass. It fell, hit the woman on the head. There was no way an ambulance could get to the accident at the top of the precinct, they lifted her over the railings. About thirty years later we had a US programme 'CHEERS'. But Gibson did introduce car parking on the roofs of shops.
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Re: Coventry History...

Postby dutchman » Sun Feb 19, 2023 12:38 pm

Very interesting, thanks Blitzkid. :thumbsup:
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Re: Legend of Blitzkid

Postby Blitzkid » Thu Mar 02, 2023 12:36 pm

THE HISTORY OF THE COVENTRY WALLS,

The city walls was not begun until the year 1355, by a licence granted by Edward III twenty seven years before, nor were they finished for a further 40 years.

The walls were of great strength and they stood like that until July 1661, when the great part of the wall and towers and gates were pulled down with disgrace, as a punishment to the inhabitants for closing their gates to their monarch CHARLES I ON 13 AUGUST 1642. His majesty was at Nottingham and desired to live in Coventry, the mayor and alderman said he was welcome, but refused admittance to any of his soldiers or staff. Incensed at this the king attacked the city and forced open one of the gates, and the city. But Charles I often lived at the Charter house in Coventry over the next few years where he liked the hunting in the forests around the city. Before the walls were built there had always been a castle and a park that had been the Kings of Mercia.
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Re: Coventry History...

Postby Blitzkid » Mon Mar 13, 2023 10:37 pm

English History.

In 1264 or thereabouts Simon De Montford Lord of Leicester, issued a charter, that no Jew or Jewess in his time or any of his family, to the end of the world. The charter was to the Burgesses of Leicester.

The Jews then were extortionists and murderers. A small boy was found at the bottom of a well in a Jewish garden. For this 32 Jews died horrible deaths.

In the year 1290 Edward I issued an edict that by which all Jews were expelled from this country. No less than 17 thousand tried to leave the country. They suffered much cruelty and most died. They were not allowed back till 1655 when Oliver Cromwell allowed them to return.

In the thirties many agreed with Hitler's views, including members of the Govt and people in Coventry and Leicester were among them. That’s why we had Mass Observation in 1937.
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