WWI - Nice at Coventry this Easter

t's nice to know that Elsie was having a 'nice time' in Coventry that Easter! Although there's no date or stamp present on the card, there is a small clue that hints at a particular time period....

....and that is in the address at the bottom; "92 Munition Cottages, Foleshill". As you may already be aware, Coventry was a very significant production centre for weapons and munitions in both World Wars, and this vast increase in factory production produced an urgent requirement to house thousands of workers. The names of many of the new streets built reflected the type of work being carried out, and the name of this quite extensive row of dwellings leaves little to the imagination.

The Munition Cottages in Holbrook Lane, like much of Stoke Heath and the area around Red Lane, were built some time around the First World War. We can now learn a little more about these from Colin Barnes', whose parents both spent some of their early years living in the cottages between the wars. Colin adds the following....

"The cottages were just off Holbrook Lane - I think they stood where the Everdon Road estate is now. They were single storey, and constructed of breeze blocks with roofs of wood and fabric. The lofts in the cottages had no divisions, so as a boy my dad used to go into the roof space and could wonder the entire length of the row of cottages."

Colin also located a Coventry Telegraph web-page displaying an old photo of one of the cottages.

The picture on the front of the postcard, however, is not connected with any of this, and shows the bandstand that used to stand on Gosford Green, with what looks like King Richard Street and Grantham Street leading off Walsgrave Road in the background.

If anyone has any memories of this bandstand, please write to me to share your story.