IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Bond Street, COVENTRY, CV1 4AH

The Town Wall Tavern on Bond Street is very much a traditional city centre pub, cosy and welcoming and complete with this piano. The notice asks people not to use it for resting glasses and bottles. The window frame suggests that this area is an extension at the back of the original building. For an external view see Image

The grey box appears closely connected to the Belgrade Theatre. Its close neighbour at the end of the street is the Town Wall Tavern; it has a Facebook page.

Traditional pub on Bond Street somewhat overshadowed by the solid wall of the Belgrade Theatre.

The sign for this traditional pub on Bond Street is a reminder of Coventry's medieval past but is hardly representative of the modern city.

The street was originally known as 'the Town Wall' hence the public house's name, which is probably of mid 19th century date (between 1835-51). Locally listed.

A long established public house located on or near the site of Coventry's town wall, behind Corporation Street. The 'triple-A' logo within a circle on the gable end is that of the former Atkinsons Brewery Ltd of Aston, Birmingham. The building to the right is part of a residence for the elderly.

On Bond Street.

Work is currently under way redeveloping the area around the Belgrade Theatre. This decoration on one of the hoardings is the result of a collaboration with various nearby residents' groups. The background is a silhouette of the east windows of the old cathedral ruins. Above the hoarding the top of Hillman House tower block can be seen.

The Belgrade Theatre was completed in 1958, to a design by the City Architect Donald Gibson, and incorporated part of a gift of timber from Coventry's twin city Belgrade, at that time the capital of Yugoslavia. It was the first civic theatre in Britain, having been conceived, designed and funded by the city council, and marked a break with the earlier conception of theatre in Britain as an essentially commercial undertaking. On seeing it, the critic Kenneth Tynan wrote, ‘Enter most theatres and you enter the gilded, cupidaceous past. Enter this one, and you enter the future.’ The theatre was extended and refurbished by Stanton Williams Architects in 2005-7. See 'Building of the month: March 2018 - Belgrade Theatre, Coventry', by Alistair Fair, writing for the Twentieth Century Society at https://c20society.org.uk/building-of-the-month/belgrade-theatre-coventry#) . The mural depicts the African-American actor and slavery abolitionist Ira Aldridge in the role of Othello, based on a painting of 1830 by Henry Perronet Briggs, which is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. Aldridge visited Coventry in 1828, when he was 21, and made such an impression that he was offered the position of manager of the Coventry Theatre, which he held for several months. The mural is the work of Neequaye Dsane, who signs as Dreph, and was commissioned as part of the UK City of Culture 2021 events in Coventry; see the City of Culture website here https://coventry2021.co.uk/news/in-paint-we-trust-ira-aldridge-mural-at-the-belgrade-theatre/ .

Construction equipment on site at the former Bond Street car park where a student accommodation block is about to be built.