Tile Hill is a suburb in the west of Coventry, West Midlands, England. It is mostly residential and partly industrial, with some common land and wooded areas. Tile Hill railway station is located on the West Coast Mainline which links Coventry with London and Birmingham, and is situated at the south-western border with Canley and Solihull.
Contents |
Tile Hill is seated in the ancient Forest of Arden, and some remnants of the forest remain between the built up areas. Tile Hill Lane is flanked by Plants Hill Wood to the south and Pig Wood to the north.
Tile Hill Lane approximately divides the suburb into a northern and a southern section. Tile Hill has three main neighbourhoods:
Tanyard Farm built in the 1980s is an extension of Tile Hill Village to the West of Banner Lane.
There are two secondary schools in Tile Hill: Woodlands School, a boys' comprehensive school and sports college,[1] and Tile Hill Wood School, a girls' comprehensive school and Language college.[2] All of the other secondary schools in Coventry are coeducational.
Primary and junior schools in Tile Hill include Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Junior School,[3] Leigh Church of England Junior School,[4] Limbrick Wood Primary School,[5] and Templars Junior School.[6]
Hereward College[7] is a further education college for students with disabilities of various kinds. City College[8] (formerly called Tile Hill College), was adjacent to Hereward College, but has now been demolished and has been relocated to a new purpose-built campus in Swanswell near to Coventry city centre.
Some of the notable landmarks in the Tile Hill area include:
The artist, George Shaw, moved into Tile Hill in 1968 with his family. The estate in Tile Hill his family moved to was built after the war, as part of the nationwide programme to create a modern future. The estate is open-plan, cut across by long paths and roads, and edged with woods, a remnant of what was once the Forest of Arden. George used this suburban environment as the inspiration to paint highly detailed, almost photo-realistic, works using the novel medium of Humbrol Model Paint.
Tile Hill was a scene of carnage on 19 December 1988 when the local branch of Midland Bank was raided by two armed robbers. When police responded and pursued the raiders, one of them shot dead 29-year-old officer Gavin Carlton and wounded his colleague Leonard Jakeman as the pursuit reached Torrington Avenue. The gunman, 22-year-old David Fisher, then broke into a house in nearby Earlsdon where he was surrounded by armed officers before shooting himself dead.[11]