A Visit to Coventry - Part 1

Last weekend we visited Coventry - partly to see the two Cathedrals and the Knife Angel on temporary display there and partly to have a look at some of the other historic features of the city including its medieval heritage.

Memorial at the Belgrade Theatre to Bryan Bailey its first Director.

We somewhat whizzed through West Orchards Shopping Centre

Holy Trinity Church which dates back almost 1000 years. It has connections to the Benedictine Priory of St Mary associated with the Earl of Leofric and Lady Godiva - see below. Sadly, I didn't have time to go inside the church which is a shame as it contains a superb, recently restored, medieval painting of the Last Judgement.

Statue of Lady Godiva

During the 11th century Lady Godiva was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia and one of the powerful lords who ruled England under the Danish King Canute.

Lady Godiva was herself a rich landowner. Leofric it appears was rather a tyrant and demanded that the people of Coventry paid him a tax called The Heregeld. Lady Godiva felt sorry for the people of Coventry and asked him to stop the tax and he told her that he would only do so if she rode naked through the streets of Coventry. On market day Lady Godiva did just this and rode through Coventry naked except for her long golden hair which covered most of her body. A later 17th century version of the story suggests that she had sent messengers to the town asking everyone to remain indoors behind closed shutters on the day she rode through. Everyone obeyed except for a tailor who could not resist a glimpse - hence a "Peeping Tom"!

Leofric was so astonished by her act that he stopped the tax and also ceased persecuting the church. He may even had a religious conversion as he and Lady Godiva founded the Benedictine monastery in Coventry mentioned above.

The Natwest building is Grade II listed. The stainless steel door was designed by Walter Holden and has motifs from British, Irish and ancient Greek coins.

Ford's Hospital - named after William Ford whose will of 1509 endowed the almshouses. It is one of the finest examples of timber framed architecture. It was badly damaged by the air raid in November 1940 and between 1951 and 1953 it was rebuilt with the original timbers.

Dr Who fans might be interested to know that an episode entitled The Shakespeare Code with David Tennant as the Dr was filmed here. In fact, my son has still not forgiven me for not taking him to view the filming!!



The Golden Cross Inn built around 1583 and much restored.

A few more photos of Holy Trinity Church

We then visited the ruins of the old Cathedral and the new Cathedral but I will save that for another post.


The last time we visited Coventry (apart from the occasional theatre visit and trips to nearby Brandon Marsh NR) was in 2009 when we went to a Dr Who Exhibition at the Coventry Transport Museum.

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I have cheated a bit and included some photos from that visit so you can see a bit more of the medieval architecture

This is St Mary's Hall - built around 1340 - 1360 and restored in 1824. It may include parts of a 12th century castle in its South wall. The building was originally the Guild Hall and chamber for St Mary's and Holy Trinity Church merchant guilds founded 1340 and 1364. I really should have revisited and taken some more photos as looking through the old set of photos I remembered it has some stunning stained glass.

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Medieval Spon Street was once on a major route between Birmingham and Gosford. In the early 12th century weavers and dyers worked here. Sadly the street was split in two when the city's inner ring road was built in the 1960's. Most of the buildings are timber-framed from Tudor times. Some of them were not originally built here but were re-erected here after World War 2 bombing raids. Weaver's House on the other side of the ring road is sometimes open and is on my list of places to visit!

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St John the Baptist (1344) and another church that looks worth visiting!

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Photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera and those marked with an asterisk were taken in 2009 with a Fuji Finepix digital camera.