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Martineau Street

Think many buildings are these days adapted to meet demand. So turning unoccupied buildings into hotels is as good a use as any provided you've got the customers to fill them and pay for them. All helps the local economy.

Wonder why the Commercial Union needed such a big loading bay? Surely an insurance company doesn't need a massive underground loading bay? For what? Paper? Don't get it. Viv.
 
Viv, These underground service tunnels often served more than one outlet and then there was private parking for the higher ups. The entrance for the Big Top site where the tax offices were was in Moor St. I think it's still there today and that was a massive underground complex that went under the High Street.
 
Viv, These underground service tunnels often served more than one outlet and then there was private parking for the higher ups. The entrance for the Big Top site where the tax offices were was in Moor St. I think it's still there today and that was a massive underground complex that went under the High Street.

Thanks Phil. Always find these underground structures fascinating. And they're right there under our feet as we go to and fro in the streets above. Maybe the service tunnel burrowed through the cellars of the Victorian houses then if it followed the route of Martineau Street. Viv.
 
Even night lighting didn't do much to improve the atmosphere of Martineau Square. Still looked unfinished to me. Viv.

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Even night lighting didn't do much to improve the atmosphere of Martineau Square. Still looked unfinished to me. Viv.


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Some years ago I bought a TV from this Dixons shop. I had to drive my car into the tunnel entrance at the High Street/Bull Street junction to get to their pick up point underneath the shop.There seemed to be a lot of other tunnels running off this one,fascinating !
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This is the one Bernie. Found it in my collection. Comes from one of the Alton Douglas publications, view dated 1958

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Martinau Street High street end all thats left 1964.jpgMartinau Street all that's left High Street end 1964 from the John Ball Collection duplicate of earlier post by Richie
 
I loved the old Martineau Street - a million times better than the ugly concrete that replaced it all in the name of money. In the late 1950s there used to be a coffee bar opposite where the number 6 tram stop is the earlier picture in post #33. It gave the place a real continental atmosphere, except that several times a night, like most of them, they would chuck us all out on the pretence of closing & reopen five minutes later just to force us to buy more coffee. Can't for the life of me think what that one was called.

Maurice
 
I have commented about this picture in the other thread.
I have considered the pic again this morning and believe the older bus,on route 7, might be one of the AEC batch built in 1926/7. Notable is the destination board positioned on the radiator. Often these older style buses had the positioned above the open drivers cab.
The Quinton 9 bus I believe is one of a 1930 AEC engined batch - OG409 - OG443. There were other buses similar to these, known lovingly as piano fronted, but I think these were the only ones with an offside destination box in the upper saloon. They were removed at a later date and many of these bus types were fitted with new wartime style bodies. Some, as detailed in other threads, were used for the unsuccessful anthracite gas trials. One or two made it, in rebuilt form, to become driver training buses.
To recapitulate the other thread this pic is dated before the contentious 1933 revered one-way system was introduced.
I think post 32 is earlier than 1930's, but I may be wrong there. Post 36 seems of a similar date.
The Coventry registered car is rather lovely. Is that its chauffeur stood by it?
 
Maurice, l remember that coffee cafe..i tasted my first espresso coffee there and liked it especially on a cold night, of course it was made with scolded milk , the espresso coffee served today is nothing like they served in the 50s.........Brenda
 
I believe I was taken in there for meals. The main restaurant was upstairs if it is the place I remember. It would have been in the late forties.
 
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