The Definitive Guide to the History of
Pubs and Beerhouses in Coventry

Drinking in an Old English Town

Devonshire Arms, Sewall Highway

On the 9th March 1938 Mitchells and Butlers' application for a public house proposed to be built on the corner of Sewall Highway and Torcross Avenue was granted. Violets and primroses grew in profusion over the fields where the pub now stands. It opened in 1939 and in 1940 permission was granted to hold the Sunday School of St Mary Magdalene in the upstairs room. This must have been a wartime expediency. In 1985 it was said that the lounge was decorated with gnarled beams and clotted cream walls, quite a contrast to the functional red brick exterior. This name reflects the extensive estates owned locally by the Dukes of Devonshire.

LICENSEES: 1939 Cecil Stanley Best 1939 Lawrence Taylor 1941 - 1951 Mary Eleanor Taylor 1953 - 1959 Jack W. Guest (became first licensee of the Black Prince, Jardine Crescent) 1960 - 1961 Bernard Louis Wilner 1962 L. W. Brown 1963 - 1964 James Stinton 1971 James Martin 1976 Barry George Porter 1976 - 1985 John & Nora Mulhall 1985 - 1988 Martin McKeown 1988 - 1999 Jimmy Herbert 1999 - 2006 Paul & Sarah Owen 2006 - 2021 Amanda Alcock (died 20th May 2021)