Cov HOD

In between work trips to Yorkshire and the South-West, I managed to fit in Coventry Heritage Open Day, last weekend. Coventry was one of the best medieval cities in England till the middle years of the last century. Ironically it was its industrial prosperity, rather than entirely the blitz, which started the removal of the narrowest streets to facilitate the growing number of cars, source of the city's wealth. Obviously the blitz did huge damage which the planners would never have done (would they?), and there is a lot which is good about the modernist precincts which replaced the old streets. But apparently the work could be done remarkably quickly because Donald Gibson had had the plans in his back pocket since being appointed municipal architect just before the war. (See this for one version of the controversy, and this, an excellent site but perhaps a little too thorough for those not particularly involved in the city).

Anyway, armed with a booklet I set off to discover what was still left of old Coventry. Surprisingly, there are many gems still surviving - just, in the case of some.



St Mary's Guildhall is over 650 years old and was one of the apparently innumerable places in which Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned. It has a glorious roof which would be not out of place in a Somerset or Norfolk church.



Inside are several intriguing carvings, like this fork-bearded character.

The Council Chambers are a surprise: one imagines this forward-looking city to have a thoroughly modern, state of the art, council chamber. Instead there is dark wood, writhing in snakes and twined in vines.

What a venue for the discussion of bin rounds!

St John's Church is a tall narrow building overlooking a roundabout and overlooked by the backs of modern shopping centres. However, inside it is an impressive Perpendicular style medieval church with a rather varied history, including the reason for one popular phrase about the city.

Inside the church this curious little person clings to the walls, with a Green Man for company. They look down on the congregation as they have done for several centuries. What was in the minds of the people who carved these, and who commissioned their creation? A mystery that we will probably never fully solve, and probably the better for that.

PLEASE NOTE: there may be an interruption in postings to this blog. My computer, rescued from the threat of being skipped, is probably not long for this world. It took seven goes to get it started this evening, and the rest of the evening will be spent copying as much as I can of my work and photos on a memory stick in case it never starts again! The easy answer would be to go out and buy a new computer - or even order one online tonight - but did I ever go for the easy solution? I'm fairly determined to get a second-hand one, so I'm hoping that Complete Wasters will be able to help. But they are in Leicestershire, so it may take me a while to get it sorted.