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As long ago as the 12th century Spon Street played an important role in the prosperity of Coventry. It was here weavers made high quality woollen cloth and dyers and tanners worked next to the river. The Sherbourne ran blue from the dye – and the highly prized cloth gave rise to the expression “True as Coventry Blue”. |
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Another Spon Street expression “Sent to Coventry” recalls the hostile reception given to Civil War prisoners who were confined in the 14th century parish church of St John the Baptist. The church still forms an important focus in the streetscape.
Since medieval times the thoroughfare has been home to a variety of trades. It was also an important trade route from London, through to Shrewsbury and Holyhead. Stage coaches rattled along the cobbled thoroughfare until Thomas Telford opened his ‘new’ Holyhead Road in 1829.
By Georgian times Spon Street was an important centre of watchmaking. The workshops are lost, but numbers 26-28 are the former offices to Rotherhams one of the city’s famed makers of clocks and watches founded in 1747. Charles Dickens visited in 1858 and was presented with a gold watch.
 Another important industry once stood on the site of Skydome. The Rudge-Whitworth works proudly boasted “The Oldest and Largest Bicycle and Tricycle Manufacturer in the World”. Cycles and later motorcycles were made here from 1889 until 1939. After WWII hundreds of skilled women worked in the building assembling telephone parts for the world-class GEC Company.
Among the renowned shops in Spon Street from 1861 was a chemist and druggist owned by Frederick Bird. Coloured jars and bottles, hexagonal and fluted some marked with the skull and crossbones decorated his window.
 Spon Street the home of watchmaking that made Coventry famous around the world. Centre of the trade.
Samuel Yeomans, wholesale watch maker at 49 Spon Street made watches that were so accurate he would send the to the Kew Observatory on tests lasting 45 days.
Coventry Watch Movement Manufacturing Co. founded in 1889 manufacturing all the little toothed wheels, escapements, pinions, springs, plates etc making up the complete movement.
The famed Chemist and Druggist Birds, almost every complaint that children or adults can suffer from provided by Frederick Bird – his Teething Powders, Cough Elixir, Restorative Pills. Many of the remedies were concocted by Bird himself. Agent for Voska Company’s non-alcoholic stimulant for summer and winter. Shop lasted until the 50s when demolition for the ring road. P.92 John Ashby,
Fairfax School at No.182. pupils wore a thick rounded cap finished off with a green worsted tuft and band giving rise to the name “Green Gift School”. Founded in 1751 froma donation from Samuel Fairfax – to educate and clothe poor children. In 1767 there were 12 boys and 12 girls and the schoolmaster, who was also a shoemaker, made the pupils’ shoes.
Rising Sun pub (now the Green Room) Most illustrious landlord Jimmy Winter, a keep fit fanatic ran a gym above the pub where boxing matches took place.
Another colourful local businessman was newsagent Herbert Goddard who traded from number 10. He took advantage of stationary traffic at the junction to sell his Evening Telegraphs, much to the amusement of those passing through.
The 1960s saw the construction of Ringway Rudge severing the once busy street. Buses ceased, hundreds of GEC women left work for the last time and the character of Spon Street changed forever. By the late 1960s the City Council had produced a Townscape scheme to reconstruct and preserve some of the historic buildings. Others were relocated here from various parts of the city.
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