Coventry, the city that rose from the ashes

Coventry is the city that rose from its own ashes. In the heart of the West Midlands, some twenty kilometres from Birmingham, it has about 345,000 inhabitants and one of the youngest populations in the UK by average age. In the Middle Ages it was one of England's richest cities, in the 19th century it became Britain's capital of bicycles and then of cars, and on the night of 14 November 1940 it was almost razed to the ground by German bombers. From the ruins of its cathedral came a message of peace and reconciliation known around the world, and beside those ruins rose one of the most important churches of 20th-century architecture. It is also the city of the legend of Lady Godiva, of the Specials' ska, and in 2021 it was UK City of Culture.

Trains from London Euston take about an hour, and Birmingham Airport is about ten minutes away by train. Coventry is also a handy base for Kenilworth and Warwick castles and Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's town.

The legend of Lady Godiva

In the 11th century Coventry was a small settlement that grew up around a Benedictine monastery founded in 1043 by Earl Leofric of Mercia and his wife Godgifu, a name that over time became Godiva. The couple are historical, and she was one of the few women landowners of her day. The legend, told by chroniclers more than a century later, says that Godiva asked her husband to reduce the taxes burdening the townspeople; Leofric replied that he would do so only if she rode naked through the town. Godiva agreed, covered only by her long hair, having ordered everyone to stay indoors with their shutters closed. Only a tailor named Tom peeped, and was struck blind: from him comes the English expression Peeping Tom.

In Broadgate, the heart of the city, a bronze equestrian statue from 1949 commemorates the countess, and the nearby Godiva clock re-enacts her ride every hour, with Tom peering from a window. From time to time, during civic celebrations, a real-life Godiva, decently dressed, still rides through the streets.

A history of wool, bicycles and cars

In the 14th century Coventry was one of the four or five largest cities in England, enriched by the wool and cloth trade. Its dyers produced a blue that did not fade, giving rise to the saying true as Coventry blue. The guilds staged mystery plays, the medieval religious dramas, from which a famous Christmas lullaby survives, the Coventry Carol. During the 17th-century Civil War the city sided with Parliament, and captured Royalist soldiers were sent here, where no one would speak to them: hence the expression to send someone to Coventry, meaning to ostracise them.

After the decline of the cloth trade, Coventry reinvented itself several times: first with watchmaking and silk-ribbon weaving, then, in the second half of the 19th century, with bicycles. In 1885 John Kemp Starley built the Rover Safety Bicycle here, the first modern bicycle with two equal wheels and chain drive. From bicycles came motorcycles and cars: in 1896 Daimler opened the first car factory in the UK in Coventry, followed by Rover, Triumph, Hillman, Jaguar and many other marques. For much of the 20th century the city was "Britain's Detroit", and even the jet engine owes something to Coventry: its inventor, the engineer Frank Whittle, was born here in 1907.

The night of 14 November 1940

Because of its industry, converted to making aircraft, engines and armaments, Coventry became a Luftwaffe target. On the night of 14 November 1940, in an operation the Germans called "Moonlight Sonata", around five hundred bombers attacked the city for more than ten hours. The medieval centre was largely destroyed, hundreds of people were killed and St Michael's Cathedral burned, leaving only its outer walls and tower standing. German propaganda even coined a verb, coventrieren, for the total destruction of a city.

The next morning, amid the still-smoking rubble, the cathedral's provost, Richard Howard, had two words written on the wall of the ruined chancel: Father Forgive. Not "forgive them", but a forgiveness addressed to all. Two charred roof beams were bound into a cross, and three medieval nails fallen from the roof were made into a small cross, the Cross of Nails, which became the symbol of a reconciliation movement now present in hundreds of communities around the world. In 1944 Coventry formed with Stalingrad the first town twinning in history, and after the war it twinned with Dresden, itself destroyed by Allied bombing.

What to see in Coventry

The two cathedrals

A visit begins with the ruins of the old cathedral, left as they were after the raid: roofless Gothic walls, empty windows, the charred wooden cross and the words Father Forgive behind the altar. The tower, around 90 metres high, survived and can be climbed. Among the ruins stands the sculpture Reconciliation by Josefina de Vasconcellos, showing two people embracing: one copy is in Hiroshima, another in Berlin.

Next to the ruins, joined to them by a great porch, stands the new cathedral designed by Basil Spence and consecrated in 1962. It is one of the masterpieces of post-war religious architecture and a museum of modern British art: outside, Jacob Epstein's great bronze of St Michael triumphing over the Devil; inside, Graham Sutherland's immense tapestry Christ in Glory, one of the largest in the world, John Hutton's engraved glass screen of saints and angels, and John Piper's baptistery window, an explosion of colour made of nearly two hundred panes. For the consecration Benjamin Britten wrote his War Requiem, first performed here.

The historic centre and Spon Street

Despite the destruction, Coventry still has several medieval buildings. St Mary's Guildhall, built in the 14th century by the merchant guilds, has a great hall with a 16th-century Flemish tapestry still hanging in the place it was woven for, and it was here in 1569 that Mary, Queen of Scots was held prisoner. The city's three spires, those of the old cathedral, Holy Trinity church and the free-standing spire of Christ Church, still define the skyline of the centre, which was once known as the "city of three spires". In Spon Street medieval timber-framed houses have been brought together, some dismantled and rebuilt here from other parts of the city, and now house pubs and shops.

The rebuilt centre

The modern centre deserves a careful look too. As early as 1941, while the war was still raging, city architect Donald Gibson presented a plan to rebuild the city in an entirely new way. The result was the Precinct, the first major pedestrian shopping area in the UK, with shops on two levels, terraces and small squares, and an open view towards the spire of the old cathedral. In the 1950s architects and planners came from all over Europe to study it. Today many post-war buildings are listed, and walking between Broadgate, the Upper Precinct and the Lower Precinct you will notice mosaics, reliefs and public art of the period, such as the large mosaic mural telling the history of the city. It is a good example of how England imagined the future in the aftermath of the war.

The transport museum

The free Coventry Transport Museum tells the city's story through its bicycles, motorcycles, cars and buses: it is one of the largest public collections of British vehicles in the world. The stars are two record-breaking cars: Thrust2 and ThrustSSC, the latter the first to break the sound barrier on land, in 1997. One section recreates the 1940 Blitz.

The Herbert and music

The Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, next to the cathedrals, houses art collections, local history and a gallery devoted to peace and reconciliation. Music lovers should visit the Coventry Music Museum, which tells the story of 2 Tone, born here in the late 1970s: the Specials, the Selecter and other bands mixed Jamaican ska with punk, in groups of black and white musicians, at a time of strong racial tension. The Specials' Ghost Town, from 1981, described a city emptied by the crisis in the car industry and is considered one of the defining songs of those years. In the creative quarter of FarGo Village, set in an old factory, there are independent shops, street food and bars.

Around Coventry: castles and Shakespeare

• Kenilworth Castle, about ten kilometres south: the imposing ruins of a great medieval castle, where Robert Dudley entertained Queen Elizabeth I with legendary festivities in 1575.
• Warwick Castle, about twenty kilometres away: one of England's best-preserved medieval castles, now run as a visitor attraction with shows and events.
• Stratford-upon-Avon, about thirty kilometres away: William Shakespeare's birthplace, with his house, the Royal Shakespeare Company's theatre and timber-framed houses.
• Nuneaton and the Warwickshire countryside described by George Eliot, who went to school in Coventry.

Universities, sport and life

Coventry is a university city: the University of Warwick, one of the best in the country, has its campus on the city's southern edge, and Coventry University occupies much of the centre. Students help make Coventry one of the youngest cities in the UK. Coventry City, who won the FA Cup in 1987 in a memorable final against Tottenham, play in a modern stadium north of the centre. Among famous Coventrians is the poet Philip Larkin, born here in 1922.

Living in Coventry

Coventry has lower house prices and rents than the south of England, a job market tied to the universities, healthcare, logistics and the car industry, which survives through research and design centres, and fast links to London and Birmingham. The centre, rebuilt after the war to a modern plan with pedestrian areas and a very tight ring road around it, has been through difficult years, but the City of Culture title in 2021 brought investment, new cultural venues and a refreshed image.

Getting there and getting around

• By train: Avanti West Coast and London Northwestern trains from London Euston take about an hour to an hour and a quarter; Birmingham New Street is about 20 minutes away. The station is a ten-minute walk from the centre.
• By air: Birmingham Airport is about ten minutes away by train, at Birmingham International station.
• In the city: the centre and the cathedrals are easy to explore on foot; for Warwick, Kenilworth and Stratford there are trains and buses, but a car makes it easier to see everything in one day.

For travel around the rest of the country see trains and transport, and for other cities British cities.

Tips for your visit

• How long: half a day for the cathedrals and the centre, half a day for the transport museum; add a day for Kenilworth, Warwick and Stratford.
• When to go: around 14 November the city remembers the Blitz with ceremonies in the cathedral; in summer the castles nearby hold events and re-enactments.
• Don't miss: the Litany of Reconciliation, prayed in the ruins of the old cathedral every Friday at noon.
• A tip: enter the new cathedral from the ruins, as Spence intended, to feel the passage from destruction to rebirth.

Coventry on the map

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