IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Market Way, COVENTRY, CV1 1DL

The greyness of Coventry Point tower block is given a rosier hue by the winter afternoon sunshine.

The block in the background is Coventry Point.

Market Way has a much brighter aspect now that Coventry Point office tower has been demolished and the sightline to Hillman House restored.

The last few days of trading for the Woolworths in Market Way. A major casualty of the recession of 2008, Woolworths closed all 807 of its UK stores with the loss of about 27,000 jobs at the end of the year. A long established high street name, the first store opened in Liverpool in 1909 and early stores sold goods at 2 prices: 3d (1¼p) and 6d (2½p). Woolworths has occupied this building since it was built in the post WW2 reconstruction of Coventry city centre in the 1950s. F W Woolworth & Co. Ltd, as it then was, occupied most of the building from Coventry Point to the Lower Precinct, with the main entrance facing onto the Lower Precinct. A couple of small stores occupied space facing Market Way. The store had a basement and ground floor the length of the building and a gallery cafeteria at one end. It sold a broad variety of cheap household goods, food, clothing, toys, makeup and, famously, pick-n-mix sweets. In the 1980s, the store suffered a downturn in trade and reduced its occupancy of the building to the market end basement, ground floor and gallery cafeteria. More recently it reduced further by closing the basement and became a mere shadow of its former self before the final nail of administration was hammered home. Before WW2 the store occupied a site in Smithford Street which was bombed during the war and built over during post-war reconstruction.

The Woolworths in Market Way is closed and has a few staff in taking down the last of the fixtures and fittings. A major casualty of the recession of 2008, Woolworths closed all 807 of its UK stores with the loss of about 27,000 jobs at the end of the year. A long established high street name, the first store opened in Liverpool in 1909 and early stores sold goods at 2 prices: 3d (1¼p) and 6d (2½p). Woolworths has occupied this building since it was built in the post WW2 reconstruction of Coventry city centre in the 1950s. F W Woolworth & Co. Ltd, as it then was, occupied most of the building from Coventry Point to the Lower Precinct, with the main entrance facing onto the Lower Precinct. A couple of small stores occupied space facing Market Way. The store had a basement and ground floor the length of the building and a gallery cafeteria at one end. It sold a broad variety of cheap household goods, food, clothing, toys, makeup and, famously, pick-n-mix sweets. In the 1980s, the store suffered a downturn in trade and reduced its occupancy of the building to the market end basement, ground floor and gallery cafeteria. More recently it reduced further by closing the basement and became a mere shadow of its former self before the final nail of administration was hammered home. Before WW2 the store occupied a site in Smithford Street which was bombed during the war and built over during post-war reconstruction.

Coventry Point's demolition wrapper has developed a few holes since recent windy weather. Dec 2019: Image Jan 2017: Image

Coventry Point was a complex of two office blocks linked by a section with glass curtain-walls. It stood in Market Way in the Precinct. The architects were the John Madin Design Group and it was built between 1969 and 1975. https://www.simonphipps.co.uk/case-studies/coventry-point/ The structure was demolished in 2020.

Designed by the John Madin Design Group in the 1960s, the office block complex was demolished in 2020. It straddled Market Way on ferro-concrete legs and was knocked down as part of the Coventry South redevelopment plan. https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threads/coventry-point-tower.1724910/

A boarded-up building, a clock with no hands: Market Way is in a sorry state as it awaits redevelopment as part of the Coventry City Centre South scheme (see Image]). The open space in the foreground was, until 2020, covered by the office block Coventry Point, which can be seen at Image], and under demolition at Image