IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Stretton Avenue, COVENTRY, CV3 3QA

The sign also says 'Part of YMCA Coventry and Warwickshire' https://ymca-cw.org.uk Another sign further along says 'Willenhall Older People's Office' with the logo of Coventry City Council (CCC) Social Services but no building to go with it. Maps of the 1950s show small dwellings here on previously open land – prefabs? In the 1980s and 1990s a building here is 'District Centre' and further along is another labelled 'Clinic'. However, behind the camera is a newer brick building identified as CCC Social Services, and in the village is the new facility seen in Image, so there's been a move around.

Stretton Avenue crosses the photo from left to bottom right. The newer houses in red brick cluster around Wolston Way, which opens onto Stretton Avenue in the middle left of the picture.

There's a great deal of local authority housing in Willenhall, much of it refurbished and trim.

Flats with maisonettes above, Stretton Avenue, Willenhall, Coventry, in the snow.

Viewed from Stretton Avenue.

Dunsmore Avenue runs across the picture, climbing left to right. The dense growth of scrub is on a strip of land running back from St James' Lane. A map of 1938 shows a small building on it, identified in 1947 as greenhouses and the land as 'Market Garden'. From the 1950s to the 1970s it is shown as 'Nursery'; a building appears at the front of the site. On a map of 1982 the site is unidentified and by 1992 carries tree symbols. Bollards at the edge of the trees, right, suggest public access.

Built in 1957 and designed by Basil Spence along with two other neighbourhood churches in Coventry. The rear of the church is seen in Image A number 60 bus heads for Arena Park in the north of the city. Photographed in the late afternoon of a bright day in early October.

The Church of St John the Divine is one of three commissioned in 1954 from Basil Spence for the Coventry suburbs. They were funded by money the diocese received from the War Damages Commission for the destruction of one inner city church. Spence went on to design the new Coventry Cathedral which used some of the ideas developed here. This view shows the western gable end which incorporates a cross formed from steel beams. The building is grade II listed.

St John's church was designed by Basil Spence (who went on to design the new Coventry Cathedral) and built between 1954 and 1957 to serve a new housing estate. The tower of the grade II listed building is certainly distinctive but whether it is a thing of beauty is a matter of opinion.