CovSoc founder member, Paul Maddocks, has been scratching his head about a remembered elephant. Paul writes……
Does anyone remember the Elephant on the door of the Civic Centre 3 entrance?
This is s photograph taken at the Coventry Registry Offices, Cheylesmore Manor House, it’s on the wall overlooking the stair well. It is a large fiberglass elephant.
I wonder if any of you readers remember when it was on the entrance glass doors to the Coventry Civic Centre 3 which was built around 1973-4.
The elephant was on the glass doors to the ground floor reception; it was split into two half one on each of the glass doors.
What I can remember most about the ‘Elephant’ on the doors was you had to pull his ear to open the door. This became a problem if you were not very strong or in a wheelchair.
I think the fibreglass model was glued to the door as one day I noticed the head side of the elephant was missing; maybe someone had pulled too hard.
Not long after that the doors were closed and a display panel was put across the two doors with a note to go to the Main Council House for access.
I have never seen a photograph of the entrance door with the elephant; I wonder if any of you have got a photograph or remember it? For some reason I think there may have been two elephants? But my memory thinks they were back-to-back on the one door but I cannot see how this would have worked or if the entrance had two sets of doors with a porch in-between and the elephant were on each set of doors.
Did you ever go through the doors? Am I going mad or mis-remembering as it was 50 years ago?
I have done a drawing of how the door would have looked, plus a plan of the doors.
The building was mainly committee rooms, and it was mainly councillors who attended the meetings. But they mainly accessed the building via the bridge. To improve security the reception desk and the entrance doors were closed. Anyone who wanted to attend a council meeting then had to go via the Old Council House.
The visitor would have to make their way to the first floor and along the corridor and over the bridge to the Civic Centre 3 building and go up or down to the floor they required.
Civic Centre 3 was not to everyone’s taste architecturally. It had been designed by the Coventry City Councils Architects. The team who worked on it were led by Rex Chell who had been head architect on other buildings in the city centre including ‘Spire house’ on New union street and a few other iconic buildings.
Civic Centre 3 was of a brutalist style, built to look like it was all red brick and it had large legs holding the building up with a pedestrian path which went around and under the building. The link to the Old Council House was by a bridge that spanned Earl Street.
All of the buildings and bridge have now gone, following the demolition in 2020. Most of the council staff had moved to No. 1 Friargate, near to the Railway station.
When the Coventry Football team won the FA Cup they stood on the balcony in the centre of the attached photograph; I wonder where they would go if they won the FA Cup again?
If you can remember the doors that Paul is talking about, or you have a photo, then please let us know at info@coventrysociety.org.uk or drop us a message via social media.