Other places in "Now & Then"... Search this site:

Arts School, Ford Street Bishop Street Bishop Street Post Office Blue Coat School & Ruins Broadgate from Holy Trinity Church Broadgate Special Page Burges from Bishop Street Burges from Cross Cheaping Butcher Row, Great Butcher Row, Little Cheylesmore Manor House Coat of Arms Bridge Cook Street gate Council House Cox Street Far Gosford Street Fleet Street Ford's Hospital Golden Cross & Pepper Lane Greyfriars Lane The Grove Guildhall & 22 Bayley Lane Hales Street Herbert Art Gallery & Museum Hertford Street Hertford Street from Broadgate High Street from Broadgate High Street from Earl Street Hill Street, Bablake & Bond's Hippodrome, old Humber Motor Works Ironmonger Row Jordan Well & Earl Street Jordan Well & Gosford Street Kenilworth Road Mill Dam & Whittle Arch Much Park Street Naul's Mill Park Old Grammar School Old Rope Walk Palace Yard Pool Meadow Precinct & Old Coventry Aerial View Precinct, upper Precinct, west view Priory Row Priory Street, lower end Priory Street, upper end Queen Victoria Road Flood of 1900 Railway Station, Eaton Road Railway Station - the Platform Smithford Way Spon End Arches Spon Street Flood of 1900 St. John's Church, Fleet Street St. Michael's Avenue St. Michael's Ruins St. Michael's Spire from Pepper Lane Stoke Green & Pool Swanswell Gate Swanswell Pool Swimming Baths, Priory Street Trinity Church Trinity Lane & the Free Library Trinity Lane from Priory Row Trinity Street & Hales Street War Memorial Park Warwick Row to Hertford St & Warwick Lane Well Street from Hales Street West Orchard Wheatley Street Schools

Bishop Street. Camera No. 50

The first view shown here, from early 2006, is actually undeservedly flattering. As you can see in further modern views of Bishop Street on the next page, it's now a rather featureless non-entity of a place, with bland rectangular 'lego-block' buildings of no architectural merit.
A century ago, however, it was a street with a little character. (Probably several, in fact !) Its steady incline also posed a bit if a challenge to the early electric trams of the day - I wonder how many tired legs had to complete the journey after alighting an even more tired tram that had failed to climb to the street's northern extremity?
The rows of two and three storey terraced houses were also testimony to just how residential the centre of Coventry once was. The 'blank canvas' rebuild of the post-war years virtually put an end to people populating Coventry's city centre. Only with the projects of recent years have we seen an attempt to get people dwelling in the town centre again.

The small area of cobbles to the right, at the bottom of the photo, is the entrance to Silver Street; and so if the 1909 photographer was to have turned to his right, (and travel back another hundred years) he would've been greeted with a view of the old Grammar School similar to this one.

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Arts School, Ford Street < - Bishop Street - > Bishop Street Post Office

Broadgate Special Page

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