Peel Street, Foleshill, Coventry

Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 26 Aug 2021

We are looking west along Peel Street towards Stoney Stanton Road, where a white shikhara or domed tower of the Hindu temple can be seen. This street was laid out in the 1850s as part of a development by the Coventry and Warwickshire Artizans Freehold Land Society. For more on this society see Image A sense of its members' political views can be gained from the street names; Peel refers to Sir Robert Peel, the Tory politician who served as prime minister from 1834–1835 and 1841–1846 and who played a central role in the formation of the modern Conservative Party. The development proceeded slowly, and the houses in this photo have a late 19th or early 20th century appearance; see the discussion in Fry, D & Smith, A, The Coventry we have lost: Forgotten Foleshill, Simanda Press, Berkswell, pp91-92. Many of the houses in this district now belong to housing associations, and in the 2010s they were given an external insulating cladding to improve their energy efficiency. This can be seen on some of the houses on the right hand side, particularly around the door visible at the right edge of the photo.

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