Coventry Precinct
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- Опубліковано 3 чер 2009
- A definitive collection of images of Coventry's famous shopping precinct. In addition to my own postcard scans and photos I have been privileged to have been given consent to use a number of other people's pictures in this production.
Many thanks to "Allhails" (A.H.) who gave me permission to use the stunning pictures he took as a schoolboy of the Precinct. In this video they follow the redevelopment proposals and have the month / year they were taken on them. The last one is a marvellous colour shot from April 1957 which shows a completed Upper Precinct with part of Smithford Street still standing where the Lower Precinct would soon be built. To see more click this link:
www.flickr.com/photos/allhails...
Following these pictures are a collection of postcard scans and photographs which take us all the way up to St. George's Day 2009. These include 3 classic shots taken in the 1960's by John Weir of a man wearing a sandwich board to advertise Benley's in the Lower Precinct. Many thanks to John for giving me permission to use these. I've also used a couple of pictures of the St. George's Day festivities this year taken by John's grandson, Antony Weir, so many thanks to him also for allowing me to use them. [Photography clearly runs in that family!]
John Weir's 1960's Coventry photographs are hosted by Antony in this flickr set:
www.flickr.com/photos/antonywe...
Antony [generalzorn] has a diverse collection of his own photographs on flickr here:
www.flickr.com/photos/antonyweir/
Last but not least, my thanks to Rob Orland for allowing me access to his Coventry archive. On Rob's fabulous "Historic Coventry" website, Coventry's post-war redevelopment is covered here:
www.historiccoventry.co.uk/pos... - Розваги
The various councils we have had in Coventry have passed planning applications that have done more damage to the City than the Luftwaffe did in the second World War.
Very true.
Well said. And a great deal of em made very nice personal gains from those suspect deals. 1960's precinct was perfect.
An interesting aside to that is something I heard on the radio recently... it is now known that the city planners were going to take the bulldozers to the city even before Herr Hitler and his mob did their worst.
i love this , i was born in coventry in 1963 , but we had to move to leicester as my dad got seconded there with his his job in september 1968 . but coventry is still in my heart and will remain there , cos i've got so many fond memories of the short time living there. we lived in crossway road off green lane . early recollections are the carousel in the market , barnbys toy store ( god i wanted every toy in there) . the reindeer ride in thr co-op at christmas and the carnival every year.
Thank you for posting this video. I left Cov, UK in 1979 and I remember the City Center Precinct. I also remember a disco called the Locarno that was in the Precinct. Again, thank you for the trip down memory lane.
RIP Woolworths
Coventry I miss you
dearly.
Jayne Bury St Edmunds
Nice to see "Old Happy" @ 1:53, who used to walk around the City Centre with a Benley's Billboard.
Makes me weep I lived in Cov 1979 - 1983 Went to the Butts 77-79 -(Am from Atherstone originally) The precinct was a stunning example of what arcitects and artists can create The railings were fantastic Councils have no idea or value what they had. Can't believe they continued to eff it up so badly. Really shocked to see it in 2018 I hadn't visited since 1990? What happened to Far Gosford Street Why more roads The cars on its way out !
My nephew lives in Coventry and I have had many happy holidays there. He presented the key to "Lady Godiva" to welcome her on her homecoming just a week or two ago.
Hazel
I spent what seemed like an age working for BHS (RIP) in Coventry in 1967. It was only about 10 months before my escape plan was approved by the senior British officer and I was off
This is a superb post.
I was a courier at Coventry Cathedral in 1971 and remember the precinct well. It was a prosperous, vibrant city. I returned in 2003 and found a much rebuilt city - the bus station was just open land in '71- but one rather subdued.
The precinct architecture was classic post 2nd WW very similar to West Berlin and Caen, parts of Hull and Portsmouth. The place fairly buzzed in high summer and Saturdays. There were frequent coach tours to see the cathedral.
Still think of it as a great city.
Can’t believe what they’ve done to the precinct!
Good old Coventry 👍👍👍
Well done, looks better on some of the photo's than I remember - and you've revoked some very fond memories. Cheers.
This is indeed a definitive collection of Precinct pictures. Not only that, but it's also an authoritative and complete set of images of our once ground-breaking but now rather tired shopping development!
Love the music too!
Thanks for posting, sure brings back alot of memories of my childhood. I was born in Coventry and moved to London in my late teens and i would prefer to shop in Cov city centre any day of the week.
Did you see All the trees 🌳
Not any more City of Culture.
Chopped them DOWN HOW GREEN IS THAT 🌳🌳🌳
I remember Coventry in 1966.Who remembers Locarno Mecca Dancing and the manager Mr.Sullivan? I saw the Searchers for the first time there.Great time, great people - the 60ś won't ever come back.
I saw Led Zeppelin and The Move.
Some great photographs👍
A running commentary would have have made this video perfect, but thanks for the memories of where I grew up and worked.
i love cov
From what I've been told, the senior members of Coventry city council in the immediate following years after end of WWII were not indigenous Coventrians (Scots, Welsh even Geordies) it was easy therefore for them to make unemotive, even outlandish decisions as to the rebuilding of a city that they had no real attachment to other than economic settling.
MY HOME TOWN :-) MEMORIES...
The Precinct was at it's best when it was first opened. Then it was absolutely wonderful. I can't think of one later 'improvement' that they made that did not make it worse. Worst of all was the horrendous glass-enclosed escalator and after that the removal of the public toilets. Today it's a horrible mishmash of clashing design styles that do not fit together. All the good shops like Owen Owen, British Home Stores, Woolworths, C&A and the Co-op have gone.
I love my city.
Wish I was a teen in 1955. Unfortunately, I was born in the 90's and Coventry now is a prision to me. It's just horrible everywhere I look. I don't go shopping in this part now, I go elsewhere. If that means driving for 2 hours idc, as long as it's away from there. Although it's my hometown, idc. I'm not proud of it. Can't wait to move out of England!
The Birthday Big.
Put in an appearance, 53, outside.. two days before I was evicted sithout notice.
No reason but the plugged sink.
Wow.
The timbre and tonality of the Liv Tyler flock Hair Guy that from Tolkien looks like that Steve bloke andnthe build to Blairs cameo again, he didn't mind being caught ti steal for..
Noy for aEO and a Lyons convention, complete with vicky-recycled Thorne's, and i wasn't finished
Gpnon Jack. Ypiebturn. Stop God naked, Iva littleun now
To these haters who slag Coventry off, there are a hell of a lot worse places to live and work than Coventry, believe me. Get out of Coventry and look around at some of the REAL piles of crap , then you will realise just how good Coventry really is.
Bedworth or Rugby.
No sound ro the videos yet perhaps to be expected due to time-frames?. I have to agree with many of the comments below yet I only lived in Coventry 1992-6 approx and even back then, there were past-remenant 50's-60's infrastructres that existed for some time after - however, some of the video footage crept into view were early 1990's - opening of West Orchids like glass escalator cover/security footage cameras. It is only the complimentary older scenes of the past that have a strange kind of glamerous to the city - a metropolis of EDEN paradise promise that only ever existed in an architechtual fantasty.
And then every day we'll hear nothing but "can I have my ball back please"!!!!!
Better than what we have now
City of culture 2021 no trees 🌳
Chopped them down city of culture??
Concrete jungle
Del Boys garden 🪴 Center rubbish
How much £££££
great video now check out the cov band the eyes of isabel on youtube
O remember THA 12 hours ofsilence, and point blank setting probability .. at work, Winnipeg
Just pretend there's a Jon Gkenn, abd he warehousenfor Jews with sobg lyrics retracted, too
Steve, still staring at rhe banks like I point you at?
a pretty nice piece of pared down, stylish mid-century design
ruined
Shoe box structures. Perhaps the planners were glad of the destruction ready to unleash their BS!!