A day in Coventry, England – This COULD have been Englands most beautiful Gothic Cathedral

I spent a day in Coventry in the UK. The city has a reputation of being a bit of a concrete jungle as it was so badly bombed in the Blitz of WW2. However, Coventry is a city full of History.

I visited the statue of Lady Godiva, Henry VI statue, Holy Trinity Church, the Bombed out Cathedral, the Blitz Museum and the modern Cathedral. We ended the day with a gorgeous Matilda chocolate cake at The Vault.

Hi everybody and welcome to Temple Seeker. I’m on the train ready to go to Coventry today and we’re going to find two cathedrals and the statue of Lady. Welcome aboard. So here’s Coventry. It’s interesting. It looks like a very very modern city when you first see it as you come out the station and that’s obviously because it was very heavily bombed during World War II. Here you can see the Phoenix statue by George Wagstaff and that symbolizes the rebuilding of Coventry after the Second World War. Here we are in Coventry everybody. And if you’re not sure where Coventry is, it’s about 20 miles away from Birmingham. The city of Coventry has got a lot more to it than you might expect. There’s one of the spires. And here’s the Lady Giver statue. I’m in the center of Coventry now and it’s being a little bit windy because of Storm Amy. That’s me. Anyway, if you go to Market Square in Coventry, you’ll see this statue of Lady Gdiver. Lady Gdiver was married to Leafrick, the Earl of Mercia, who imposed really strict, really harsh taxes on his tenants. And he said, “I will lower the taxes if you parade naked on a horse around the streets of Coventry.” So, of course, that’s exactly what she did. But there’s a a little bit more to that legend. It’s where the term peeping tom comes from because everybody in Coventry promised not to have a look. Other than one man called Thomas who couldn’t resist. So whenever you hear that term peeping Tom, you know that it comes from the legend of Lady Gdiver in Coventry. But first stop before we head to the cathedrals, we decided to come and have a drink and a traditional English breakfast in Cozy Bar. We’ve got a really nice view of Lady Gdiva behind us. Yeah. So, eggs, sausage, bacon, baked beans. We don’t eat it every day, by the way, though. It’s a special treat on a weekend. Auntie Deb’s gone for something a little bit more healthy. It’s an avocado toast. [Music] Then it was time to take a walk to Coventry Cross to find out a little bit more about Henry V 6th. Right behind me, you can see a monument to Henry V 6 which actually contains Henry V 6 statue inside. And he’s really famous in Coventry because he didn’t like London very much. So he decided to move the royal family and the crown jewels right here to Coventry city center. And then he was followed by Henry VIIIth and of course then Henry VIII with Henry VIII then came the dissolution of the monasteries and Henry VIII unfortunately did destroy the very first cathedral in Coventry. Right behind me you can see the Holy Trinity. We’re visiting next the bombed out Cathedral and the new modern cathedral. And instead of building over the old cathedral site, they’ve preserved it and designed the new cathedral so that they integrate together. Look how close they are in proximity. In 1539, the dissolusion of the monasteries happened and King Henry VII left Comventry without a cathedral after the priary cathedral of St. Mary’s was destroyed. And so what was built later in 1918 was one of the most beautiful Gothic perpendicular cathedrals in England. And as you can see, totally gutted. But it got destroyed in the blitz in 1940 in World War II because Coventry was uh very industrial and it was a place where they used to make the um the bullets and the armory and the weapons um for fighting. So here we go. So, Coventry had once again been left without a cathedral, but they actually built a modern cathedral right opposite the old cathedral. But before we go and explore the modern cathedral, let’s go down here and take a look inside the Blitz Museum. The Blitz Museum has reopened since CO in 2020, and it’s free to get in and run by volunteers. It’s got some really interesting things to see in here. You’ve got a lot of old newspapers, original from the time of the Blitz. You’ve got lots of objects like gas masks, things that they used to use in their houses at the time of the Second World War. You can also see old typewriters, old uniforms, and there are videos as well that really give you an interesting insight into what it would have been like to live in Coventry at the time of the Blitz. I’ve just been down in that little museum, the Blitz Museum, and he said that it was incendury bombs that they used to bomb this cathedral. And that’s um I think they’re triggered by magnesium. So it’s really really hot and intensive flames. But the reason why St. Paul’s in London survived this type of bombing is because it’s got a domed roof. So the bombs slid off and could be put the fire could be put out at the bottom all around the edge of the church. Whereas with Coventry Cathedral, because it was a flat roof, the incendiary bombs just stayed on the roof, burnt through the timbers and created that much heat that the iron bars that were holding it together buckled and the roof just completely caved in. Look at this here. in gratitude to God and to commend to future generations the self-sacrifice of all those who served on the home front during the Second World War. Well, I’m blown away by all that history. But next, I’m really excited to go into the modern cathedral. And this cathedral is an Anglican cathedral built between 1955 and 1962. It’s very, very modern. really a stark contrast to the Gothic ruin that we’ve just visited. It was designed by Sir Basil Spence. And here you can see the Baptistry window by John Piper which is made of 198 brightly colored glass panels and it’s 26 m high. Walk down the nave of the new cathedral in Coventry and you’ll see the tapestry of Christ in glory. It was actually handwoven on a 500y old loom. There are also a couple of smaller chapels within the cathedral including the unity chapel and the chapel of Gethsemane here that you can see which has got an iron screen in the design of the crown of thorns. There were still a few things to see around Coventry. So we had a little walk to find some more TUDA and Georgian architecture near the old part of the city center. One more thing that’s really cool in Comry is the way that they’ve built the new modern council chambers in the old TUDA style. So even the modern buildings, they have tried to keep them in line with the historical city center as it used to be. Well, after all that walking and exploring, we really were in need of a little coffee break. So, we headed to Vault Cafe. Look at all that gorgeous, gorgeous cake. And we had this Matilda chocolate cake, triple chalk, and you pour chocolate sauce over the top as well. Phenomenal. Well, thank you so much, Coventry. You’ve been a pleasant surprise, and I’ll see you all in the next video. [Music]