page_title: Radford, Coventry
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Radford, Coventry / History
caption_attribution_description: Sandy Lane, Radford, Coventry, England. Shows a red brick building with stone banding, built in 1906-7, (see below) which was formerly the office block of Motor Mills. It is one of the few surviving buildings of Motor Mills, the former car factory and Daimler factory in Coventry. This building was used by Coventry Climax forklift trucks as its headquarters in the 1980s. Please note that this building was built "in the 1860s" for Coventry Cotton Spinning and Weaving Company. Gutted by fire in 1891 it was rebuilt but still unused (it contained textile machinery) when acquired in March 1896 and re-named Motor Mills by what became The Daimler Company Limited. source: Lord Montagu and David Burgess-Wise Daimler Century pages 31-32&#160;; Stephens 1995 ISBN 1-85260-494-8
context_page_description: Radford is a suburb and electoral ward of Coventry, located approximately 1.5 miles north of Coventry city centre. It is covered by the Coventry North West constituency.
context_section_description: At the end of the 19th century, Radford was turning from a largely undeveloped rural area into one of Coventry's major manufacturing areas. The southern area of Radford benefited from the presence of the Coventry Canal and also the railway, and was served by Daimler Halt railway station, located on Sandy Lane. This was also the site of the Sandy Lane power station, which has now been turned into a mixed use residential and business development - Electric Wharf.
  Possibly Radford's greatest historical claim to fame comes from its centrality in the birth of the British motor car industry. The Great Horseless Carriage Company was established in 1896 in converted cotton mill works, and renamed Motor Mills, between St. Nicholas Street, Sandy Lane, and the Coventry Canal. It included a red-brick office block with stone banding on Sandy Lane built 1907-08, and an electricity power house which was added in 1907. Soon after, the company changed its name to Daimler and shortly before the First World War, they moved to a new factory at the Lydgate Road/Sandy Lane Junction. The factory was greatly extended during and after the First World War to incorporate entrances on both Sandy Lane and Middlemarch Road. After a merger in 1960, the factory also became home to Jaguar, who remained there till production ceased in the mid-1990s.
  Between the world wars, and for a short time only, Radford was home to an aerodrome situated close to the Daimler factory, the site of which is now taken by Joseph Cash Primary School and the Coventrians RFC.
  During the "Coventry Blitz" in the Second World War, Radford became a major target for the Luftwaffe due to the presence of the Daimler and the nearby Alvis factories, who were both producing, munitions and essential vehicles for the British war effort. With the exception of the office block on Sandy Lane and the electricity power house, Motor Mills was destroyed in the blitz. On 19 November 1940, a landmine suspended by parachute was dropped by the Luftwaffe and exploded above ground, destroying St Nicholas' Church, leaving only one course of stones standing. Some of the people seeking shelter in the church crypt were killed or injured.
caption: The red-brick building on Sandy Lane, Radford, now called Harp Place, was formerly the office block of Motor Mills. (photo 2007)
exif: {"Image Make": "PENTAX Corporation", "Image Model": "PENTAX Optio 550", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "1.00", "Image DateTime": "2007:09:16 11:26:28", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "502", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 12, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4084", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6326", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/304", "EXIF FNumber": "43/10", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:09:16 11:26:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:09:16 11:26:28", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "39/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1034", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "37", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3"}