Ribbon weavers' houses with top shops, Holyhead Road, Coventry

Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 12 Jun 2021

A surviving row of houses of a type once common in Coventry, seen here from the rear. The ground and first floor of each house was a home; the second floor, typically reached by a ladder through a trapdoor, was the family's weaving-shed, with large windows to throw the greatest possible light onto the loom and the fine, detailed work that was carried out there. Silk ribbon weaving was the main source of work in Coventry for over a century, until the Cobden-Chevalier free trade treaty with France in 1860 opened the British market to French silk goods at lower prices, leading to the collapse of the local industry and great distress to the weavers and their families. This row of eighteen houses was built between 1819 and 1837. Nine survive; the others were demolished in the 1960s to make way for the ring road (behind the photographer), which reduced this section of Holyhead Road to a stub, cut off from the main road out of the city. http://planning.coventry.gov.uk/portal/servlets/AttachmentShowServlet?ImageName=844954

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