Coventry photo collections on the Internet

Available from today - John Laing Collection: Breaking New Ground Breaking New Ground is a 21-month project to digitise and explore the John Laing Photographic Collection. The John Laing plc building company profoundly shaped post-war Britain. They built outstanding sites of worship like Coventry Cathedral, some of the country’s first motorways, including the M1, the Barbican and buildings which housed pioneering forms of technology such as Berkeley Nuclear Power Station. Historic England holds Laing’s photographic collection of around 230,000 images. Breaking New Ground is a project that will digitise, conserve, catalogue and make accessible 10,000 images from this incredible collection of social history. Historic England Laing Collection. Helen. I'm just going through these and there are some crackers - some I would not necessarily associate with Laing but must be new to the site. Let me know if you are looking for any other specifics - there are some cracking new ones Edited by member, 13th Jan 2020 11:46 am

That is indeed a great collection. Among the rarer photos were a number along the Sowe River footpaths, where I used to run many times during the school holidays in the early 1960s. Changed a bit since then though!

Cheers Neil. Well I've got this friend who really wants a picture of Silver Street... I regularly comb through the Historic England photos but stuff pops up in other parts of that site so it's always good to keep our eyes open. I've got various pictures of Silver Street but a nice old photo would be very useful for me too. I'm quite flush with images but I still find gems, like Vicar Lane. I'm looking for yards, backs of buildings, demolition or even bomb damage - Those Board of Health pamphlets were excellent, even if some of the images elude my detection ability (they could be well outside my area but sometimes I discover that a picture I was sure wasn't Coventry, turns out to be). Very old sketches, paintings and etchings are the ideal but there are a few areas that might be still out there in photography. I'm still looking for photos of the middle bit of Cox Street, east side. The stretch on Gosford Street south side replaced by the factories. I've got much of it but not all. The bit on Much Park Street where Short Street was built and on the same side of the road, the bit where they built the school. I've got a lot of nice demolition pictures of that whole area. The middle part, north side of Jordan Well is mostly missing a decent picture, although most of it looks newish from a distance. The section to the south of Jordan Well from Much Park Street to the Little Palace Yard isn't well covered either. On the north side of Earl Street, the section from the corner of Bayley Lane to Wheelers on the corner of St Marys Street. There might be pictures of the north side of Earl Street to that shop on the corner of Hay Lane, taken before they started demolition for the Council House. I've got some sketches and a rough photo from the back but no good photo of the fronts. The Star Yard might also be interesting. ...Well you did ask

Yes I was hoping! I'll add to threads on here some of the new ones to me.

There are so many good images at Historic England it would be hard to choose which photos to include. A lot of them are from a survey after the war. The Herbert have some of the same collection but different ones. Logically there are some buildings missing that I know should have been photographed but aren't in either repository so maybe there's a third lot?

Some interesting drawings from the restoration of the old cathedral and the designs for the new one.

For one of the greatest collections of pictures and information on Coventry, may I remind people that this site is blooming fantastic. I'm still not done looking through every topic that might be of interest to me but when I do I'm constantly delighted at what has been posted before. The library plus Rob's History site and his pictures are also worth looking at cover to cover. I'm going to go through them again because each time I look, I'm searching for tiny details I didn't spot the other times.

I seem to have built up quite a collection on my laptop now as well, so if anyone is ever after anything specific just shout out. I try to capture anything I see that’s not in the normal books / views etc. and not seen much before. I do try to add on here when I can but there are quite a few! Edited by member, 21st Apr 2020 3:23 pm

Neil, I'm looking for a picture of a carnival float made by AWA/HSA apprentices, likely early to mid-60s, that used a Hunter cockpit. If you ever come across one, please remember me.

If there is a resource you use often, it helps to make your own copy (naughty I know). Sometimes (not unreasonably) they prevent you from doing this. Usually you can get round this by screen printing at a size that suits and if necessary stitching the bits back together. I use presentation software (eg Power Point) to arrange them. I then save them in useful groups eg Fire Insurance in a folder marked Maps.

Ooh ooh! A great collection of 'Coventry and its Environs in the 19th Century' has just turned up on Flickr here!!!! I've identified a few. The resolution is amazing considering the era - you can click to zoom. Enjoy! Example - never seen this view of the toll gate at Allesley - the old eye hospital to the centre left. Edited by member, 6th Jan 2021 11:11 am

Very nice. I agree with the naming so far and several are weirdly relevant to the mills stuff I've been working on. The Whitley Village, the Effluent pits that came before the waste disposal plant. Several of the others are in the same area I'm thinking. The St John's one ties up nicely with a painting I've got. This is my week blown Ta very plenty.

Wow, that collection is absolutely amazing Neil ! The photo that astonishes me the most is this sad looking photo of St. John's church - and the most amazing thing is its possible age. St. John's underwent two major restorations, in the 1850s and the 1870s. When I first saw my own Wingrave image. I assumed it must be between the two projects (c1860s), with just over half already completed. But the photo on Flickr shows it in such a dilapidated state - could it be among the first ever photos in Coventry (or anywhere!) - before the 1850s restoration? Just fantastic!

I knew you'd like them as much as I did as soon as I'd seen them and immediately recognised the rarity of the views. I just stumbled across them by complete accident but left a Flickr note thanking the poster and telling him I've linked the page to here - hopefully to increase his views. As Helen's said before it’s amazing how these things just keep turning up. There'll be more out there, I just don't think some people realise the significance of what they have. I think they all came under a search for glass plate negatives, so yes they are very early. Keep hunting gang! Btw, ain't the resolution impressive for the age when you zoom in! Edited by member, 7th Jan 2021 11:31 am

BTW I've also asked the poster where they came from and mentioned we'll comment on locations identified, if you can please!