IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Dersingham Drive, COVENTRY, CV6 7BQ

Foleshill was a large parish of scattered settlements, with houses built around greens or spread out along roads. Coal mining, ribbon weaving and agriculture dominated the local economy. The parish fields were enclosed in 1775 and Windmill Lane, today Windmill Road, was laid out at this time. These cottages, part of a settlement historically known as Hall Green, would have been built alongside the road some time later. The change of name to Windmill Road reflects the spread of Coventry suburbs into the area at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. See David Fry & Albert Smith, The Coventry we have lost: Forgotten Foleshill, Simanda Press, 2018.

A mill race is a channel constructed to conduct water away from a stream or river to power the wheel of a watermill and then onwards to rejoin the main stream again. This path runs alongside the course of the mill race downstream from Foleshill Mill, along which the water flowed from the mill back into the River Sowe. Mill and mill race can be seen on the OS six inch map (1888-1913 series). There is no sign of them now. Just beyond the cast iron posts the path bridges the modern course of the Sowe, immediately downstream from where it was joined by the mill race. It then follows the course of the mill race to Mill House, an 18th century house Image

Mill House is a historic building surrounded by a modern housing estate with bird-themed street names. The house is a Grade II listed building, one of only two in Alderman's Green (the other is the war memorial by the Methodist Church). The Historic England site describes it as 18th century, altered in the 19th https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1076654?section=official-list-entry . The ornamental bargeboards on the gables give it a Victorian appearance. Round the back is a miniature cottage with its own small bargeboards on the dormer window. In the distance can be seen the junction of Alderman's Green Road and Eburne Road.

A footbridge crosses the river just below a weir. Longford Park occupies the floodplain of the Sowe, and the course of the river has been much altered here, so that through the eastern side of the park it follows neither its historic course nor that of the mill course that supplied Foleshill Mill Image A 'weeping' cultivar of the Chinese willow Salix babylonica has been planted to create an attractive riverside walk; see Image

The glossy leaf suggests Caucasian Lime, Tilia euchlora. Alan Mitchell comments that it has been much planted because it is free of the aphids that infest other limes; on the other hand, in the long term, it does not form a pleasing crown as other limes do.

The stone insert gives a date of 1882 when I presume this brick extension to the church was built.

An open space for people to enjoy.

Looking along a path to Cubbington Road.