IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Old Church Road, COVENTRY, CV6 7BZ

The modern Coventry district of Bell Green grew from a hamlet of that name in the parish of Foleshill, a district of farm workers, coal miners and ribbon weavers. Houses clustered around a green where Church Road (now Old Church Road), Bell Green Road, Hall Green Road and Henley Road met. They included the Bell pub, which gave its name to the settlement. The Bell was known as a place where entertainers stayed while performing at the Coventry Theatre. It was demolished in the 1960s. A street of houses, Bellview Way, was later built on and around the site. It can be seen here, viewed from the green, now a busy traffic roundabout, in the wan sunlight of Christmas Eve 2022. See David Fry & Albert Smith, The Coventry we have Lost: Forgotten Foleshill, Simanda Press, 2018, p63 & p68.

With its vernacular cottages and village chapel this Coventry street looks almost rural, though the housing block in the distance, Dewis House in Riley Square, is definitely urban. See also Image] and Image

Coventry people generally associate Foleshill with the Foleshill Road, the historic main road north out of the city. The historic parish of Foleshill, however, was centred further east around Old Church Road, the old church in question being the parish church of St. Laurence, set back from the road in a wooded churchyard. The road itself still has a number of vernacular cottages and Victorian houses among the modern suburbia, as well as a 19th century Wesleyan chapel (not visible here). Old Church Road leads to Bell Green, and Dewis House, the tower block at Riley Square, can be seen in the distance.

On Old Church Road.

A Wesleyan chapel was built here in 1813. The present building dates from 1848 and was repaired after damage in the second world war. In the 1960s it was known as Bell Green Methodist Church (see Victoria County History, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol8/pp382-396 ). It is now home to a congregation of the New Testament Church of God.

The centre of Bell Green - always a busy road junction. The Polish delicatessen 'Kasia' is relatively new - previously there was a butcher's here for many years. The house next door to the left housed a barber's shop on the ground floor for many years. The tower block behind is Dewis House, part of the Riley Square development.