News

At our first general meeting for 2026/27, Coventry Society focussed on transport in Coventry. We had two excellent presentations from Colin Knight, Director of Innovation at the Council who provided us with an update on the Very Light Railway (VLR) and Neil Benison, Transport Planning Manager at the Council, who covered the transport strategy. This… Read more: Coventry’s Transport Strategy

Coventry historian and author, David McGrory, has published his 29th book about Coventry and its history. In ‘A Dark History of Coventry’, David delves into the dark and lesser known stories about Coventry’s past. Coventry has been a major city in England since the Middle Ages. As the city grew, deprivation, crime and its punishment… Read more: A Dark History of Coventry

A somewhat bleary-eyed group of Society members met at Viscoe’s Leamington headquarters on Friday 21 August 2026 for an early 9.00 am start. We were met by Matthew and Dan, who escorted us around the facility, with Dan providing informative and entertaining insights into the company’s background and the assembly processes we were observing. Vitsoe… Read more: Visit to Vitsoe’s Leamington HQ and Production Building

An exhibition of rare footage and photos brings the City’s past to life. The exhibition, at the Priory Visitor Centre Undercroft, shows visual records of a city’s past and present brings together three collections for the first time. Coventry Then & Now features archive photographs of the city, rare film footage of the construction of… Read more: Coventry Then and Now

The pioneering work on the jet engine by Sir Frank Whittle has been celebrated with a new set of stamps from Royal Mail. Alec Blackman writes on the BBC website…. Whittle, who was born in Coventry and founded Power Jets in Rugby to build the aircraft engines he designed, before going on to continue his… Read more: Jet pioneer celebrated with new Royal Mail stamps

Historian and CovSoc member, Peter James, tells us how the plague affected Coventry over centuries. Peter writes…. The first plague epidemic known as The Black Death initially appeared in Europe in 1346. Originating in South East Asia it spread along the Silk Road into the Middle-East, North Africa and then Europe. The bubonic plague secured… Read more: The Plague in Coventry

Historian and CovSoc committee member, David Fry, celebrates the 90th anniversary of the last Coventry Hippodrome. David writes….. This year marks the ninetieth anniversary of the beginning of the construction of the last of the Coventry Hippodromes. This fact was brought home to me as I read a short article by the son of the… Read more: 90th Anniversary of the Third Coventry Hippodrome

Historian and CovSoc member, Peter James, tells us the fascinating story of a Coventry company that excelled in several different fields. Peter writes…. Early Years : Foundations & Innovation Coventry Climax can trace its roots back to 1903 when Lee Stroyer was established in East Street  to manufacture petrol engines. Horace Pelham Lee, a former… Read more: Coventry Climax

On 12 th August 2026, a meeting was held at the Council House with officers from Corporate Parenting & Sufficiency. In setting out the reasons behind the request for this meeting, on behalf of the Coventry Society, Tim Brown explained that the Council’s planning department has been receiving at least two planning applications per month… Read more: Coventry City Council’s Children’s Service: Children’s Homes

We reported recently that Citizen Housing are planning to demolish most of the remaining blocks of flats in Hillfields. We noted that we will be losing the iconic winged roofs of the blocks. But as well as the buildings themselves, we will also be losing the names of the blocks, some of which are historically… Read more: What’s in a Name?