Shops of Far Gosford Street, Coventry, on the north side and eastern end

Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 24 Jul 2021

Far Gosford Street is an early suburb of Coventry that developed in the middle ages along the road east out of the city towards Leicester and London. It survived the air raids of the second world war and the redevelopment of the postwar years largely intact. It was declared a conservation area in the 1990s and in recent years has undergone a 'regeneration' programmed that has succeeded in reversing its decline without destroying its character, which rests both in its buildings and its independent businesses. https://www.coventrysociety.org.uk/news/article/new-heritage-group-for-far-gosford-street.html This section has a row of 19th century houses and commercial buildings with stucco facades, once known as Ashville Terrace. The gardens were covered over with extended shop fronts in the early 20th century. Anedo is a Nigerian chop house and bar; beyond it are a pizza house, a guitar shop, a Polish-Ukrainian restaurant ('Slovianka'), then two of the street's many barber shops, one of them East African. The larger three storey building beyond them was home to the Coronet Cycle Works at the end of the 19th century and later the Humber Motor Works; it was rebuilt after a fire in 1906. https://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/nowandthen/content.php?pg=humber-wks It lost its rear section to the construction of Sky Blue Way in the 1980s; the rest housed a branch of Lloyds Bank for many years. More information can be found in 'The Far Gosford Street Conservation Area: Brief History and Character Statement' at http://www.coventry.gov.uk

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