A Brief History of Chapelfields

Chapelfields is outwardly another suburb of Victorian Coventry, built between 1845-60. However a closer look reveals that it is not quite like any other suburb as many of the houses are constructed with rear integral workshops, the tell-tale sign of a watchmaking district. The area also has medieval origins as the name Chapelfields is derived from a medieval leper hospital that once stood at the junction of what is now Allesley Old Road and Hearsall Lane.

In 1175, Hugh Kevilick, Earl of Chester, founded a Leper Hospital and Chapel dedicated to Saint Mary Magdelen. One of his servants had contracted leprosy. The hospital was located well away from the city beyond Spon End and survived as a barn up to the beginning of the 19th Century. A drawing in the Aylesford Collection at the Birmingham Reference Library shows it surviving, around 1800, as a stone barn with a thatched roof.

By the early 19th Century the land was the site of a large nursery, known as 'Weare's Nursery' and owned by Sir Thomas White's charity. Coventry at this time was expanding rapidly and the watchmaking industry that was concentrated around Spon Street was in serious need of additional space. By an Act of Parliament in 1845, the Trustees were empowered to "lay out roads and sell plots by public auction for development". In 1846, the four streets were laid out and in 1847, the first houses were erected. Many of the houses were built on small plots or in small groupings, giving the area its distinctive character. Many were built as specialist watchmakers homes with workshops and some were also occupied by weavers. Many watchmaking masters also relocated to the area building bigger premises along the Allesley Old Road. Development was quick and by 1849 Chapelfields was an established area of watchmaking, although still surrounded by open countryside.

The period of prosperity lasted until the 1890s, although no new building took place after 1860 other than a single terrace of watchmakers houses at Stanley Terrace. As the watchmaking industry declined it grouped into larger concerns such as Rotherhams and the Coventry Movement Company, both in Spon Street, and the Coventry Watchmaking Co-operative whose headquarters were in Stanley Terrace. From 1900 the industry declined rapidly and Chapelfields developed into a conventional suburb, although a Mr Alexander of Chapelfields was still describing himself as a watchmaker in the early 1960s.

Chapelfields survived the bombing of World War 2 relatively unscathed but faced a bigger threat in the late 1960s when the entire area was earmaked for demolition and redevelopment. Luckily a major campaign by local residents not only saved the area but also led to being declared a Conservation Area in 1976.