About Us

Cheylesmore Community Association was established on Saturday 8th May 1948 in order to manage Cheylesmore Community Centre (the only surviving Coventry Ex World War 2 Hostel). A charity status was granted in 1965. The Association was reformed as a charitable company in March 2010. In 2012 the City Council approved a 50-year full repairing lease until 2062 for the buildings and site. Apart from serving as an administration and hostel during World War II, the building was also used as a school and a church before the Quinton Baptist Church and local schools were built. If you look carefully you can still see a school road sign on Arundel Road!

Cheylesmore is pronounced “Charlesmore,” and occasionally “Chellsmore.”! One old Coventry map from 1610 spells it: ‘Chilefmore Gate.’

Cheylesmore Community Centre now acts as a social, recreation, training and educational space. In addition, we house Cheylesmore Community Library, Coventry’s first entirely volunteer-run library and our catering wing C3 Coffee Shop/Cafe. Cheylesmore also offers eleven versatile spaces that can be hired, with Wi-Fi, and free parking plus disabled access and parking. Despite being a rather open site, the Centre grounds have several grass areas with 29 mature trees including Wild Cherry, Maple, Ash and Silver Birch. We are always looking to make improvements to the Centre complex. 

Average drive time from Coventry Train Station is 5 mins (1.5 miles), Coventry City Centre is 7 mins (1.7 miles) Birmingham International Airport is 20 mins (12.4 miles).

There are several defined purposes for Cheylesmore Community Centre:

1. Be a venue for local residents’ activities ~ not necessarily running activities in the Centre ourselves as an Association, but providing the facilities in which other community groups can operate.

2. Facilitating local groups to meet community needs ~ helping with community capacity building so that groups can better meet local needs, especially where gaps in provision are identified. This has happened since 2017 with the Library, Food Hub in 2020 and C3 Coffee in 2021.

3. Support volunteering ~ mobilising individual residents to engage with the activities going on, both of running the Centre itself and supporting those activities taking place.