Dutchman's Blog

The old and new Croft Roads ran parallel for a few years. The watchmakers cottages on the left are facing away from the camera.

Sadly, many of Hillfields’ landmark buildings had already been destroyed by then.

Showing the phone boxes and newagents kiosk. I think the red box in the foreground was a postage stamp dispenser?

The Lady Godiva pub opened on 26th February 1964 and the former Morris Engine Works caught fire in July of that year so this picture must have been taken between those dates.

…looking towards London Road. The boiler house of Gulson Road hospital is on the left and Whitefriars Abbey in the centre. In the foreground is Victor Mancini’s café. He also had a fleet of ice-cream vans and a stall in the market. On the corner in the distance – just beyond the Hope & Anchor – is an old-fashioned tea shop which was very popular with the Irish navvies who built most of post-war Coventry.

I was too young to drink there but the café two doors down from it was one of my favourite haunts in the 1960s. I still associate it with drinking Coke, playing pinball and listening to Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch on the jukebox.

Demolition has already started on the old shops.

…looking towards Gosford Street. All of the ancient buildings in the middle of the picture were demolished between 1963 and 1965 to make way for an extension to the College of Art.