IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Kingfield Road, COVENTRY, CV6 5PL

These council houses were the first to be built in Coventry, in 1907. More followed soon after on neighbouring streets laid out by Narrow Lane (today Kingfield Road), and by 1912 over two hundred houses had been built by the city in this area. They were much needed at a time when the rapid industrial expansion of Coventry had led to an influx of workers and their families and housing was scarce. See David Fry & Albert Smith, The Coventry we have Lost: Forgotten Foleshill, Simanda Press, 2018, p27. At the end of the 20th century the city's remaining housing stock was sold to a housing association. Many of the homes are now privately owned, but the uniform appearance of these suggests that they are still social housing. They are brick-built but have been covered with insulating cladding some time early in the 21st century, like these flats in Willenhall Image

Taken from the junction with Marion Road. The land on the left hand side is being redeveloped for housing and has been given the twee name 'Swallowcroft' by the builder.

These are some of the earliest council houses in Coventry, built by the city some time between 1907 and 1912. The very first row, on Pridmore Road, can be seen at the end of the street, on the right hand side of the photo, and also on this Geograph Image], which provides more information.

Now festooned with communication transmitters is the base of a former chimney, part of the former Courtaulds textiles site. Part of the site is now the Foleshill Enterprise Park. The narrow canal was built to connect the city of Coventry with the Trent & Mersey Canal, some 38 miles distant, to exploit the Warwickshire coalfields. Construction of the canal took 20 years before it was complete in 1769. The canal between the basin in Coventry and Hawkesbury junction was made a conservation area in 2012.

The base of a former chimney in the extensive Courtaulds textiles site, with part of Foleshill Enterprise Park, which now occupies part of the site, in the foreground.

Ordnance Survey cut mark benchmark, with its datum line removed, shown on 1973-1979 Map levelled at 95.48m above Newlyn Datum

There used to be railway sidings behind the wall - area now redeveloped. There is an OS benchmark Image cut in the bricks of the near wall pier

The locomotive was built in 1901 by Hawthorn Leslie (Works No 2491) for the Foleshill Light Railway which was linked with Webster's Brick Works a short way to the east of Courtaulds works, which the line also served. The line effectively passed into Courtaulds (then still British Celanese) management around the 1920s, and 'Henry' was moved to their site at Spondon, Derby. It moved back to Coventry in the early 1970s for display, as seen here, and has remained in preservation, currently (2021) at Barrow Hill.

A working steam loco at the Courtauld's works, glimpsed from a boat on the Coventry canal. I am grateful to Alan Murray-Rust who has subsequently identified this as a Peckett 0-4-0ST loco built in 1948, w/n 2085. (Scan of 35mm colour slide - quality not good due to slide having suffered poor storage.)