Former Railway Hotel, Boston Place, Foleshill

Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 2 Sep 2021

The former Railway Hotel in Foleshill, Coventry, is seen here from the nearby road bridge that links Lockhurst Lane and Holbrook Lane and carries them over the Coventry-Nuneaton railway. Built to serve Foleshill station, it must have lost its purpose with the station's closure in 1965, but it found a new lease of life in the 1970s as a venue for the Indian and Caribbean communities. Annette Hay recalls in the Coventry Telegraph how, "In the 1970s one half [The Railway Pub] was owned by an Indian man, called Mr Nijjar but known as Deete, and the other half was used by the West Indians, and in the middle floor was a massive dance floor. In the West Indian side they'd be playing snooker and cards. I learnt to play snooker there, sometimes people would bring in their families, for many years many of the West Indian community would use that facility." This reflects, says Hay, a time when racism was much more explicit in Coventry and the club offered a safe space. The West Indian, now Caribbean, club moved in 1983 to premises in Spon Street (Hay is quoted here https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/extraordinary-history-coventrys-west-indian-19050407 ). When photographed in 2021 the building was disused.

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