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Coten End, WARWICK, CV34 4NT

The Warwick end of the main route between the town and neighbouring Leamington. A pleasant street, despite the traffic, with sufficient shops, pubs and services.

'Belleco', "energy efficient lighting", is either closing down or having a rethink. It has not been in Coten End long, replacing a Costcutter convenience store that itself lasted only a couple of years. Like a couple of other local shops it couldn't survive after a Sainsbury's Local, with parking and a cash machine, opened along the road (on the site of a petrol filling station and two doors along from a primary school). 'Chapters', next door, is a long-established hair salon.

Offices to let above a shop with a wide frontage. It has been a fancy light fittings shop (another) and a convenience store that was no match for the Sainsbury's Local along the road. The bus stop is mostly in use for Stagecoach service X17, Coventry-Warwick and Gaydon.

Coten End and St John's have more small shops than the town centre, perhaps because there's a colossal Sainsbury's fairly close to it Image There is slow change in Coten End: businesses come and go, some stay, some have a facelift. The ghost sign on the nearest building said 'London House'.

Some of them seem like fixtures: Chapters hair salon, The Oak pub (a free house), and the cafe on the right (open am, closed pm). The yellow fascia is a relic of a Costcutter convenience store 2011-13. It packed up after a Sainsbury's Local and a One Stop opened close by. Since then it has accommodated several short-lived ventures: lighting Image, carpets, wedding dresses, then vintage evening gowns. In September 2020 it is still empty. The Cobblers did shoe repairs, key cutting and the like. It was run by two brothers, or maybe one man and a brother with some kind of disability. It closed because of "personal circumstances" and appears now to have been converted to a dwelling.

The shop on the corner was a family greengrocer, affectionately known as Ken's Fruity. It closed recently partly due to the owner's ill-health, partly due to loss of trade since the opening of a Sainsbury's Local nearby Image Its succcessor, a shop selling soft water, is no compensation. On the right is Guy Street.

How could it take so long? Let's hope that a greengrocer will open up here, to replace the two we've lost. Note the ghost sign: 'London House'.

Seen from the junction with Coten End. The lock-up garages, left, are used as cool stores by a greengrocer. The building opposite is a shoe shop.

The inspection cover in the foreground is marked 'Post Office Telephones'. The name Guy Street remembers the semi-mythical Guy of Warwick, successively warrior, pilgrim and hermit at the end of the Anglo-Saxon period.