Statue Fragment
Remains of a 15th century statue of a saint holding a richly decorated sword, possibly St Paul. Fragment unearthed in the recent excavations of the lost cathedral site and currently displayed in the Priory Visitor Centre in Coventry.
Coventry is known for losing its cathedral to wartime bombing; what is less well known is the fact that this is the second time this city has lost a cathedral in 400 years. The original St Mary's Cathedral was supressed at the Dissolution, a monastic and Diocesan church in the then Diocese of Coventry & Lichfield; the latter alone remained as the medieval Coventry Cathedral was erased by history.
The cathedral complex was sold to a wealthy businessman who rapidly sold off the materials, leaving the site so heavily plundered that by the 1600s barely even ruins remained.
There were formerly three towers, probably with spires like the sister cathedral at Lichfield. The base of the north west tower was still fairly complete up to at least the 1800s, though much was lost when it was incorporated into the newly built Bluecoat School buildings in 1856. The lancet window and arcading were lost at this time, and the rest remodelled for secular use, leaving only the bottom 3 metres and parts of the two octagonal turrets on the north side (capped by spirelets as a reminder of their former glory).
Much of the nave and monastic buildings to the north were revealed at the start of the century, many of the latter being surprisingly complete, but of the cathedral itself little more than foundations are visible.
Thus the view we see here is the nearest we can get to experiencing the scale of Coventry's lost Cathedral.
Immediately adjacent to the old cathedral were the large cruciform church of Holy Trinity and the even larger St Michael's (which must have formed a remarkably impressive group prior to the 1540s). The latter was elevated to cathedral status in 1916 as one of the 'parish church cathedrals' when the Coventry Diocese was restored, but of course perished in the air raid of 1940, and replaced by Basil Spence's world famous new building now physically joined to it, which itself almost touches what would have been the eastern extremity of St Mary's, therefore three cathedrals (past and present) stand in a single plot in the heart of the city, surely a unique occurence!
Statue Fragment
Remains of a 15th century statue of a saint holding a richly decorated sword, possibly St Paul. Fragment unearthed in the recent excavations of the lost cathedral site and currently displayed in the Priory Visitor Centre in Coventry.
Coventry is known for losing its cathedral to wartime bombing; what is less well known is the fact that this is the second time this city has lost a cathedral in 400 years. The original St Mary's Cathedral was supressed at the Dissolution, a monastic and Diocesan church in the then Diocese of Coventry & Lichfield; the latter alone remained as the medieval Coventry Cathedral was erased by history.
The cathedral complex was sold to a wealthy businessman who rapidly sold off the materials, leaving the site so heavily plundered that by the 1600s barely even ruins remained.
There were formerly three towers, probably with spires like the sister cathedral at Lichfield. The base of the north west tower was still fairly complete up to at least the 1800s, though much was lost when it was incorporated into the newly built Bluecoat School buildings in 1856. The lancet window and arcading were lost at this time, and the rest remodelled for secular use, leaving only the bottom 3 metres and parts of the two octagonal turrets on the north side (capped by spirelets as a reminder of their former glory).
Much of the nave and monastic buildings to the north were revealed at the start of the century, many of the latter being surprisingly complete, but of the cathedral itself little more than foundations are visible.
Thus the view we see here is the nearest we can get to experiencing the scale of Coventry's lost Cathedral.
Immediately adjacent to the old cathedral were the large cruciform church of Holy Trinity and the even larger St Michael's (which must have formed a remarkably impressive group prior to the 1540s). The latter was elevated to cathedral status in 1916 as one of the 'parish church cathedrals' when the Coventry Diocese was restored, but of course perished in the air raid of 1940, and replaced by Basil Spence's world famous new building now physically joined to it, which itself almost touches what would have been the eastern extremity of St Mary's, therefore three cathedrals (past and present) stand in a single plot in the heart of the city, surely a unique occurence!