The Ivy Cottage, King William Street - by Fred Luckett.

The Ivy Cottage was demolished in 1997 to form a car park for Annabelle's Casino. One of the more imposing buildings in modern Hillfields it had lain empty for some years.

The first houses erected in Hillfields were in King William Street in 1828, so the Ivy Cottage probably dates from the very origin of Hillfields. Prior to this date Primrose Hill House is described as being about half a mile from Coventry and Hillfields district could only be penetrated by two roads - Swan Lane and Harnall Lane. The direct approach was by footpath from New Buildings under the arch of the old city gates in Hales Street and by Swanswell Pool.

I have no information about the building of the property , or the choosing of the name, but an ivy bush was often considered to be the favourite haunt of the owl and the plant was dedicated to Bacchus, in the belief that it could cure drunkenness.

It first appears in directories in 1841 as the beerhouse, King William Street, with Thomas Gill as licensee. The Gills retained the licence for the next forty years.

In 1926 Charrington's sold the pub, when the annual rent was 80/-. This must have been when Phipps brewery acquired it, and it has remained with their successors ever since.

In the development plan of 1951 the City Council designated Hillfields a Comprehensive Development Area. There ware at this date 25 pubs and 3 licenses in suspension in the area. They estimated that 3 pubs were needed to serve the area at a rate of 1400 persons per pub. 23 licenses were transferred to other areas. I presume the three retained pubs were the Queens Head (now the Queens), Ivy Cottage, and Vauxhall. Soon there would be no pubs left in the area, a rather sad reflection on the circumstances of the area and changed leisure activities in the intervening period.

In 1982 the Ivy Cottage was described as " a typical working class local", the owners had "obviously spent a lot of money and effort on the place" and that the public bar had "a pleasantly relaxed atmosphere". However with the local economic decline and problems associated with Hillfields, the pub closed by the 1990's.

This article was first published in "Pint Sides", the newsletter of Coventry and North Warwickshire Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale. It is copied with permission from the author, Fred Luckett, and the publishers.

The pub was also the site of a tragic suicide in 1881. At that time the landlord was William Gill. One Tuesday 23rd April, the family sat down to dinner. As the Gill's twenty two year old son Thomas was on the premises but had not appeared for the meal, Mrs Gill's sister went into the yard and called him. He replied he was on his way. The meal proceeded but the son did not put in an appearance. Thomas Gill was later found hanging from a piece of clothes line in a loft on the premises. A doctor was summoned and the man was certified dead. At the inquest it transpired that the Gill had been "very dull" over the last few days of his life. The unconfirmed reason for he suicide may have been the fact that sine visiting Packington Races on the previous Friday he had been gambling - this was the only conclusion any of the people questioned could come to. The jury returned an open verdict as to the cause of death. (From The Character of Coventry by John Ashby)

Like all pubs the Ivy Cottage had a cellar which was used during as a shelter during the blitz.Mrs. D. S. Harris was sheltering there and described the scene.