Come and find out about some of the families who lived here.
The house dates back to medieval times and has been restored to its 1540 appearance. You can experience the house as weaver John Croke and his family would have seen it and find out about their lifestyle by joining a tour or talking to our volunteers on any of our Open Days. But the house, and the terrace it is part of, has been home to many families over the centuries.
Our Family History themed day will include some special talks, a guest stall from Coventry Family History Society, and the opportunity to research connections that you or your family may have with the house or terrace. This Open Day will be celebrating the families who lived in the terrace, and if you or your relatives lived in one of the houses or courts then we would love to hear from you! If you would like to get in touch in advance please contact history@theweavershouse.org
As well as the usual refreshments, weaving and spinning, and tours of the house* during the day, we will also have a special Family History talk and a reprise of last year’s popular Spon Street walk. These two events are free, but booking is required (details are below)
The house will be open from 11am until 4pm, entry is free. Refreshments are available.
Special events (free, but booking required, all 18 August):
10am. A guided walk along Medieval Spon Street with architectural historian Nat Alcock. FULLY BOOKED.
11.30am. Family History Talk with Clare Chamberlain. This takes place in the house.FULLY BOOKED.
1pm. A guided walk along Medieval Spon Street with architectural historian Nat Alcock. FULLY BOOKED.
3pm. Family History Talk with Clare Chamberlain. This takes place in the house. FULLY BOOKED.
*Please note that as the Family History Talk takes place in the house, there will be no access to the Weaver’s House itself from 11.20am – 12 and 2.50pm – 3.30pm approximately. The rest of the site including garden, tea room, guest stall and visitors centre will still be open during these sessions.
This March, a poignant new drama will tell the true story of a Coventry family’s experience of First World War… the very family who lived in The Weaver’s House during this period.
Written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the armistice this year, this heartwrenching story from the trenches of the First World War will be staged at the Albany Theatre, close to the house itself.
The Window, written and directed by Paul Nolan, tells the true story of his great uncle James O’Neil, who was born at the end of the 19th century to a poor Coventry family who were fighting just to survive after their father was admitted to the notorious Hatton Asylum. Fast changes were taking place in the rapidly expanding industrial city at the time, and James grew up to be exactly the ‘right age’ when the First World War broke out. News that the country was at war, announced on the August bank holiday 1914, shook the family home, pitching James into the most exciting adventure of his life, as he became part of a landmark British offensive with the 15th Durham Light Infantry that would change ground warfare as we know it.
This touching play describes both the horrors of the battlefield and the struggles on the home front though the voices of James and his sister Ivy. The Window is a compelling and beautifully constructed First World War drama about a young Coventry soldier and his harrowing experiences during one of the British Army’s most notoriously unsuccessful and bloody offensives.
The Window runs from Tuesday 13 until Saturday 17 March 2018, in the brand new studio at the Albany Theatre, before embarking on tour. Paul Nolan is an actor, writer and director based in Coventry, whose ancestors lived at The Weaver’s House. If you don’t want to find out what happens in the story before you see the play, we suggest that you don’t read our other family history pages just yet!
At one of the Open Days last year, a chat between one of our visitors and one of our volunteers unearthed the interesting fact that both their grandparents lived in Black Swan Terrace. Not only that but they lived in the Terrace during the same period, so they would have known each other.
Clare Chamberlain has previously written about her O’Neil family history and so she was thrilled to discover that visitor Dawn’s grandad, Frank Miles, was also a resident. The children from both families would have most likely attended the same school, Spon Gate School, which is still there.
Frank Miles, courtesy of Dawn McCarroll.
Dawn recalls her grandad telling her that his bedroom was above the passageway (which is still a bedroom for a current tenant). All eight kids slept in one bed… their combined weight caused the bed leg to go through the floor!
In 1911 the Miles family lived in Court 31 which was located behind the terraced row that faces onto Upper Spon Street. In 1921 they moved to 120 Black Swan Terrace (currently occupied by Perfect Tresses) where they lived until 1931 when they moved to Elm Tree Avenue in Tile Hill.
The Miles family accommodation (highlighted areas – Court 33 and no.119.
The Miles family were:
Walter John Miles (born 1882, Christchurch) a bricklayer who married Ellen Gertrude Smith (born Broad Hinton, Wiltshire) in Swindon, summer 1903.
Walter & Nell Miles courtesy of Dawn McCarroll
Their children:
Walter James Miles (born 1904, Swindon)
Frederick George Miles (born 1906, Swindon)
Ernest Edward Miles (born 1908, Swindon)
Arthur Miles (born 1910, Coventry)
Frank Miles (born 1913, Coventry)
Eric Miles (born 1916, Coventry) died 1939 in a road traffic accident on his pushbike at the junction of Melbourne Road and Sovereign Road
Dorothy “Doll” Irene Miles (born 1918 twin, Coventry)
Ivy Miles (born 1918 twin, Coventry) died as an infant
Sid Miles (born 1924, Coventry)
We hope this information will be useful to anyone related to the family, researching their history.
Do you have a connection to The Weaver’s House or the Black Swan Terrace area? We’d love to hear from you!
Volunteer Clare Chamberlain shares her personal account of how research into her family history led to a special connection with The Weaver’s House.
“Would you like to go and see where I was born?” asked my Grandad one Sunday afternoon.
I used to come over to Coventry to visit my grandparents and usually the routine was the same. A cup of tea and a chat, a light lunch and maybe a few family history questions before my journey home. Like many older people, talking about the past didn’t come naturally so this offer took me by surprise and I jumped at the opportunity to learn a bit more about my Grandad’s life.
I’d been looking into my family history on and off over a number of years, gathering stories and photos wherever I could. I knew Grandad’s family were from Coventry and I’d found numerous addresses from birth certificates to tell me where they’d lived. But all those houses were gone, either destroyed in the War or pulled down since. So where on earth was he taking me?
We headed towards the city centre and I followed his directions until we pulled up in a fairly run-down looking street. The main row of houses was derelict and boarded up.
“That’s the house I was born in” said Grandad pointing to the middle of the row. “122 Spon Street; I grew up here and went to school just down the road. The house was tiny and too cramped with all of us living in there; I left to join the Army as soon as I could”.
A photo of Sidney O’Neil (Clare’s Grandad) as a boy, standing in the garden of The Weaver’s House, matched against the current view.
He told me his father, Joseph O’Neil, had also run his boot repair business from the back room of the house, leaving just one room as the main living area.
Standing across the road from the house, looking at my Grandad’s face while he talked, I knew I needed to always remember this moment. I suddenly remembered that I had a camera in my car. “Stand by your old front door Grandad, so I can take a picture”. Great! A photo of Grandad outside his birthplace 77 years on!
That day was the last time I saw my Grandad, and that photo was the last one ever taken of him. It was April 1997 and he died in the June.
Two years later my Grandad’s cousin sent me a newspaper clipping of an article about the plans by the Spon End Preservation Trust to restore the row of houses in Upper Spon Street. I was pleased to hear that hopefully they could be saved.
Black Swan Terrace with scaffold
Life moved on and became very busy; family history went on the back burner for a time. But one quiet morning, whilst my young daughter was napping, I got out my old note books and started flicking through them. I found the old newspaper article and wondered what had become of the houses. After a quick search on the internet I was stunned to see that not only had ‘Black Swan Terrace’ been restored, it was also open to the public, and the house where my Grandad lived had become the main focus for visitors, the ‘Weaver’s House’. I contacted Carol de Rose who was part of the Trust, and soon arranged to go and visit the house on one of its Open Days.
And so I found myself walking, literally, in the footsteps of my ancestors, through the house that had been home to my Grandad, my Great Grandparents, and also my 2xGreat Grandmother, Eliza. To stand where they stood, to lay my hand on the ancient wood beams that they would have been so familiar with and to touch the wallpaper my Great Grandfather hung; that was an amazing experience.
The photo of Joseph O’ Neil and Peggy in 1928 compared to the same view today.
I am fortunate enough to have old photographs of the family taken in the garden in the 1920s and 30s. On my further visits, when I took my daughter and my Dad, I made sure we too were photographed in the garden. Now six generations of my O’Neil family have set foot at 122 Spon Street.
Thanks to the Trust, Friends and Volunteers, The Weaver’s House and garden are opened up several times a year for the public to visit and I was touched by how many wonderful people gave their time and skills to keep the project running for others to enjoy, so becoming a volunteer seemed the natural thing to do.
I get to spend plenty of time surrounded by my family history and in return I can share my, now expanded, knowledge of the house and its history with visitors and other volunteers. It’s a wonder and delight to see the interested that so many people take in this humble, unassuming house that is such an important part of Coventry’s history. And, for me personally, an important part of my family’s history has been lovingly preserved and kept alive for many more generations to come.
Behind the camera: Clare has taken many of the photos of the Weaver’s House and Open Days.
To read more from Clare Chamberlain click the relevant tag at the top of this blog post.
In 2015 Clare Chamberlain, whose ancestors lived in The Weaver’s House in the early 20th century, paid a visit to the WWI battlefields. This is her creative response to that visit. You can read her blog post about the visit itself here.
Saturday 13th November 1915 – 122 Spon Street, Coventry, England
Joseph O’Neil is in his workshop at the back of the house repairing pair after pair of boots. The smell of leather perfumes the house and the noise from his tools is pleasantly rhythmic. He’d like to be in the pub across the road, but that’ll have to wait till later, when his wife Harriet is out taking the two children to visit his mother Eliza. She’s been worrying about this war so much, poor old gal, with two sons already involved and another desperate to do his bit.
Joseph is a bit old to join up but his brother William has been in the Army for the last 13 years, just demobilised and now talking of going back. And his youngest brother James is only a lad of 23 and was sent to France in September. God knows where he is and what he’s doing now.
As he pulls another battered boot from the hessian sack, his thoughts drift to James’s last letter. He sounded fine. He said the crossing to Boulogne hadn’t been too rough, and that they were marching a long way each day, but of course he couldn’t say where they were headed. He may not have even known, other than that it was East. Joseph only hopes that his brother is safe and well, and that he can send another letter home soon to ease his mother’s worries.
James O’Neil
Saturday 13th November 1915 – Nr Houplines, Northern France.
James pulls his coat tightly around himself. It’s really nippy today. The rain is holding off thankfully but the cold has got into his bones, his fingers and toes are numb. They moved into this trench only yesterday, relieving the lads from the other battalions, and already he’s sick of the sight of it. The German lines aren’t far away; if he was daft enough to stick his head up he’d be able to see them!
There was shelling earlier and his ears are still ringing from it. Luckily most of it missed them just here, but some unfortunate sods further down the line would have got it.
As James stamps his feet and shuffles around in an attempt to get warm he thinks of his family back home. He hopes his mother isn’t too worried, that his brothers are ok. He wonders if his father even understands what’s going on in the world, locked up in that asylum for so long now. He’s seen a few lads that’ll probably be heading to the same place after all this.
And now the terrible noise has started again, a shell comes over and lands with a terrible thud. Then another… and James feels the warmth of his own blood running down his arm inside his jacket. The pain comes like an electric shock, he feels dizzy, the sky grows darker, the ground comes up to meet him.
As he comes round he can feel himself being pulled, dragged. The noise seems distant now. He can’t be sure if it’s because he’s gone half deaf or if he’s further from it. Faces leaning over him. Being moved again, lifted. But now the faces are familiar; his mother, his brother Joseph, his little niece Winifred. The pain washes over him, it’s getting dark again, and he’s tired. So tired. And then nothing.
Clare standing at the trench line
Thursday 12th November 2015 – Nr Houplines, Northern France.
I am stood in a freshly ploughed farmer’s field, the sun is warming my back and there’s just a gentle breeze. The slight dip running across the field behind me is clearly visible from the shadows cast by the low winter sun. One hundred years ago today my great-great-uncle James was brought here, to the battle front, and stood very close to where I am now, tucked down in a trench, maybe even the one I’m stood in front of.
The German trenches would have been visible across the flat fields but stood here in the peace of today I am finding it hard to imagine the noise, the smell, the fear that surrounded this place a hundred years ago.
This would have been James’s last full living day. What on earth was he feeling, thinking, seeing? Could he imagine that he wouldn’t see the sun set tomorrow?
As I bend to place a poppy cross in the earth I see a lead bullet from a shell, I pick it up to take home as a memento. It’s most likely bullets like this one that caused James’s fatal wounds. I say goodbye to the Front Line of November1915 and head off to visit James’s grave, behind the lines and near to where the Field Hospital would have been.
The cemetery at Bailleul is quiet and beautifully kept. Row upon row of white headstone mark the last resting place for so many soldiers. I find James’s grave and finally give him his medals, a poppy wreath from the family and a photograph of himself in uniform.
Each side of him are men that died the same day, 13th November 1915… beside them, men who died the following day, and the day after… and the next.
I look up and nod thanks across to the cemetery gardeners who are tending the graves in the next row, who keep the place so tidy for these never-to-be-forgotten soldiers… these men and boys… these sons, brothers, fathers and uncles, who will still be here in another 100 years.
I leave James with his silent companions. I will be back to visit again one day.
