IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Dame Agnes Grove, COVENTRY, CV6 7HL

Looking south west.

Looking north west.

The German discount supermarket chains Aldi and Lidl are well known in Britain and Ireland. Aldi built a store in Bell Green, Coventry, on Roseberry Avenue at the junction with Henley Road. It closed in 2019. Step in Ari Mustafa, a local businessman who runs a chain of Euro Supermarket stores in the city. He turned the empty building into a 'Lido' store, clearly a 'knock-off' homage to Lidl. "The food we will sell will be English, Polish, Romanian, Turkish, Bulgarian," he told Coventry Live in 2021; "Bell Green is an area where there is a good mix of people, and this will be a supermarket that reflects that..." (see the Coventry Telegraph site https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/plans-unveiled-empty-aldi-supermarket-20766081 ) . Polish food predominates, with a large range of charcuterie (cooked meat, especially smoked sausage) at the deli counter. Lido is an Italian term for a beach, associated especially with the Lido di Venezia beach which surrounds the lagoon in which Venice stands. In Britain 'lido' became the name of a type of outdoor public swimming pool; see Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lido .

This block is believed to be called Joseph Latham House. Looming above it is the central tower block at Riley Square. At ground level there's a glimpse of the shopping precinct in the square.

Riley Square is a shopping centre in Bell Green, on the edge of the largest concentration of council housing built in Coventry after 1945. It is also a housing estate, with flats built over the shops. It was constructed between 1957 and 1965 to the designs of the City Architect's Department under Arthur Ling. His team included Wilfred Burns, who advocated 'neighbourhood centres' of 100-150 shops. Riley Square was the only such centre built on this scale in the city. It is named after the local cycle and motor manufacturer William Riley, who is commemorated by a mural Image Four four-storey council housing blocks were erected, straddling the pedestrian entrances to the square on 'pilotis' or pillars, with shops on the ground floor to either side. Facing onto Henley Road, the main entrance to the square, is Joseph Latham House, the shortest of the four blocks. A 17-storey block of flats, Dewis House, also with shops underneath, was built at the centre of the square, and can be seen towering above Joseph Latham House in the photo. For more information see Coventry: The Making of a Modern City 1939-1973, by J Gould & C Gould, published by Historic England in 2016 and available at the Historic England site https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/coventry-making-of-modern-city-1939-73/ . Local people often date the decline of Riley Square to the year 2000, when the branch of Lloyds Bank closed. The square has struggled to compete with more modern suburban shopping malls, superstores and retail parks with better car parking. A redevelopment proposal received planning permission in 2022. It includes the demolition of Joseph Latham House to open up the approach from Henley Road and make the site more welcoming. See this Coventry Telegraph article, which also includes archive photos of Riley Square https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/history/history-riley-square-coventrys-iconic-19304017 .

Framed by a willow tree, three four-storey housing blocks can be seen, part of a row of nine that stretch the length of Purcell Road in a sinuous double curve. The River Sowe flows among the trees to the left behind the garages. The photo was taken from Henley Road.

This mural is situated underneath Joseph Latham House at the entrance to Riley Square from Henley Road, opposite the mural depicting Billy Riley of Riley Motors Image In the right hand panel can be seen barges on the Oxford Canal, with Alexandra Colliery in the distance. The colliery was situated between the modern districts of Wood End and Potters Green, near Deedmore Road, and was served by an arm of the canal which has since been filled in.

This is a closer view of the left-hand panel in the mural depicted here Image It gives a rather romanticised view of late Victorian Bell Green, symbolised by the inset depicting a bell with the inscription 'God Save the King'. This may be one of the bells installed in the reign of James I in the parish church of Foleshill, St Laurence (spelt here 'Lawrence'), which can be seen at the top left. There is no pool between the church and Bell Green today; perhaps the blue depicts Wyken Pool, a flash created by mining subsidence on the northern side of Foleshill.

William 'Billy' Riley is remembered by a mural at the entrance to the Coventry shopping precinct which bears his name, Riley Square. See the mural while you can; it may not survive the proposed demolition of Joseph Latham House, underneath which it sits. For more information see Image] and Image], which show the two panels of the mural in more detail.