Lady Godiva’s Conventry

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At the same time that St. Mary’s and St. Michael’s were rising, the town started to build itself a city wall. This wall encircled the city, with a walkway along the top and 12 elaborate gates. The wall may have had a defensive function as well as some role in regulating the market within its precincts, but it seems to have been mainly an expression of civic pride, a statement that Coventry had arrived. As indeed it had–by 1400, Coventry was the fourth largest city in England, surpassed by London, Bristol, and York. The wall is long gone, but two of the gates survive, one of them housing the Cov-entry Toy Museum.

Half-timbered buildings, their upper stories overhanging the narrow streets, soon lined the city lanes of Coventry and spilled out the main gates, much like modern suburban strips. A major area of medieval half-timbered buildings survives along Spon Street, on the western edge of the central district. This ancient commercial district grew up outside the Spon Street Gate (now gone); about half the buildings have been moved in from other parts of the city, survivors of modern urban planning. Today’s planners, intent on fixing the mistakes of the past, are executing an ambitious restoration scheme for Spon Street. Meanwhile, visitors can enjoy a good meal and cask ale at The Windmill, an old-fashioned neighbourhood pub that strays through small, timbered rooms in one of Spon Street’s oldest buildings–a good place to enjoy a traditional Sunday roast. In 1539 King Henry VIII ordered the closing of Coventry’s Benedictine priory, founded by Godiva six centuries before, and the destruction of the city’s original cathedral, St. Mary’s. His agents carried out his wishes so completely that its site was lost until workers rediscovered its massive foundations under a demolished building in 1856. (The remains can now be seen behind the modern cathedral.) Thereafter the cloth trade declined and Coventry with it. Industry continued on a smaller scale, with weavers turning to silk ribbons–a product still made in Coventry. Watchmakers also came to Coventry, starting a tradition of fine craftsmanship. When bicycles became popular in the mid-19th century, Coventry had the skilled craftsmen needed to produce the carefully machined parts, and soon came to dominate Britain’s bicycle industry.

Some of the names of Coventry’s 19th-century bicycle makers achieved more fame for their other products. Rover and Triumph, for example, turned to making automobiles. Other Coventry auto manufacturers included Daimler and Jaguar. While these famous Coventry automakers produced the kinds of sports and touring cars that Detroit could only dream about, other Coventry companies made family cars for Britain’s growing middle classes. Coventry’s auto works thrived throughout the first half of the 20th century, earning a reputation for craftsmanship and attention to detail. Unfortunately, few of Coventry’s original factories survived the mergers and modernizations that followed World War Two, but the Museum of British Road Transport, with its large collection of antique and historic automobiles, preserves their memory. As Coventry grew on the strength of its automobile industry, it once again became a cathedral city. In 1918, the Anglican Church declared Coventry’s enormous 14th-century parish church, St. Michael’s, the new cathedral. Built of red sandstone in the spectacular Perpendicular Gothic style native to England, St. Michael’s was both the longest and the tallest parish church in England at the time of its elevation, with a bell tower standing 30 stories high. Nearby Trinity Church, another Perpendicular structure, would be overwhelming in any place other than beside St. Michael’s. At Trinity, visitors can enjoy a major late medieval church in all its glory, virtually unchanged since the 17th century.

Coventry’s large auto works attracted large-scale German bombing raids during World War Two. As darkness fell on 8th November, 1940, the Germans chose Coventry as the site to unleash a new and devastating strategy–saturation bombing. That night the Luftwaffe dropped 500 tons of high explosives and 30,000 incendiary bombs upon Coventry’s centre and factories. The massive raid killed 568 people and destroyed 46,000 homes and 75 per cent of the city’s industry. The jubilant Germans coined a new word to describe destroying a city by firebombs: zu Coventiren, ‘to coventrate.’ More air raids followed in April. Fire destroyed Coventry’s centre and left its cathedral in ruins.

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Tags: British Heritage, Religion, Social History, Women's History

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