IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Medina Road, COVENTRY, CV6 5JB

Beresford Avenue is one of a group of early 20th century streets in suburban Coventry with names redolent of the British empire and naval power at their peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Fisher, Churchill and Durbar are others. Beresford presumably refers to Admiral Charles William de la Poer Beresford, hero of campaigns in Egypt and Sudan and later an MP and Commander in Chief of the Channel Fleet and later the Mediterrannean Fleet; a summary of his life can be found at the Beresford family site http://www.beresfordfamilysociety.org/background.html . This is now one of the most multicultural districts of Coventry, with families of mainly south Asian heritage: "We are here because you were there".

Looking south east.

This metal footbridge crosses the A444 Jimmy Hill Way, formerly known as Phoenix Way, which is the main road northwards out of Coventry and was constructed in the 1990s. The footbridge connects Beresford Road in Foleshill with Holbrook Primary School and with Lythalls Lane via Copper Beech Close.

Looking north east.

This place of worship is called Jagat Guru Valmik Ji Maharaj Temple and is dedicated to the sage and poet Valmiki, author of the Ramayana, the epic which tells of Prince Rama liberating Princess Sita from the demon-king Ravana. It occupies a former parcel sorting office which was bought by the Valmiki community in 1978; one of their members worked for Royal Mail. A community centre, which is used as a langar hall for serving food, was added ten years later. The Valmikis, like the Ravidassia community Image], have a long history of struggling against caste prejudice and oppression. Both communities combine elements of Sikh and Hindu tradition. The first members of the Valmiki community came to Coventry from northern India in the 1950s. More followed in the 1960s, many from Kenya, which they were forced to leave after the country became independent of Britain. The temple website gives a history of the community in Coventry http://mvscoventry.org.uk/?page_id=74633.

The community centre sits on the Foleshill Road and is well used by the local population.

View from Foleshill Road (B4113).

This is a pair of semi-detached houses with protruding shop fronts at 799 & 801 Foleshill Road, seen from the rear. This area of Foleshill was known as Parting of the Heaths and possessed a number of three-storey weavers' houses with the tall 'top shops' that housed the high Jacquard looms. A postcard from 1906 shows groups of these houses facing onto Foleshill Road and is reproduced on p47 of David Fry & Albert Smith's The Coventry we have lost: Forgotten Foleshill (Simanda Press, 2018). These two much-altered houses are the only survivors.

The sign outside advertises a social supermarket which opened in the centre in 2020, selling donated food at a very low price to members on low incomes. https://www.coventry.ac.uk/news/2020/social-supermarket/ 'Everybody needs beauty as well as bread' is a quotation from the Scottish-American naturalist John Muir https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2019-3-may-june/editor/everybody-needs-beauty (cf. 'bread for all, and roses too' from the US women's suffrage campaigner Helen Todd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Roses )