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Wheatley Street Schools. Camera No. 53

Now a night-club, most Coventrians will remember the building on the corner of Cox Street and Ford Street as the Theatre One. The first movie I saw there was the legendary Star Wars in 1977. Back in 1904, however, things were a little different! The Edwardian photographer would've been standing in front of the Sydenham Palace, looking across at Wheatley Street Schools. Looming menacingly behind the school is the stout chimney of the City Flour Mills, between Wheatley and White Street, and in the distance on the far right of the 1904 photo, is the famous Courtaulds chimney, off Foleshill Road - once the tallest chimney in England.
Opened in 1893, Wheatley Street School was large and handsomely built, and although some people thought this was extravagant, the school became something of a showpiece, and educated 1,228 pupils from infant through to senior age in its early days.
If you were to have walked further along Ford Street opposite, you'd have seen the Arts School on the left.

To bring this photo to life, please read the memories of Muriel Wells, who attended this school during World War II.

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