Old Cathedral and Church of St Michael

We walked round the old Cathedral it was the first time we had seen this stained glass that's still in place, if you haven't stop and look up next time

This morning on TV they said they would give amnesty for anyone who has loaned or taken any and forgotten to return the stained glass window of the old cathedral, or does anyone know where any of them are. You can contact Herbert Art Gallery where at present they are cleaning up the ones they have. You can contact them on 024 7683 2386.

It'll be great if a stash of the old glass is found - it's been a mystery for decades where much of the original stained glass might've ended up. As we know, quite a bit ended up being nicely used in a couple of Icelandic churches (and at least one private house, too), but somehow a very large proportion of the glass, despite being stored "safely" away before WWII broke out, still went missing. Any of our members got any rather nice windows that you'd like to share with us....???

Hi Rob, Hi all This has been a subject well aired on local radio of late. When most of us of my age were at school, we were generally taught that there were three states of matter. Solid, Liquid & Gas. There are now at least two more intermediate states, known as Plasma & Vapour. Glass is part of the Plasma state, & like most plasma materials, plastics included, are constantly 'going off' as they age. That is why old glass becomes brittle & breaks easily. This process also means that the age of glass can be measured, which is one of the tools that may well be used to identify any suspect glass that is found.

For those who aren't aware, there is some stained glass from Coventry Cathedral in Akureyrarkirkja (church of Akureyri) in Iceland, and there's information on Rob's site here This is a recent view of Akureyri with the church prominent in the photo

I've just been reading on genealogyforum.uk (Oct 31 2010) by Gardener they ended up in a London antique dealers sold to an Icelandic businessman, he gave them to a church in the north of the country which must be the one you said, Midlandred, Akureyri, a few more ended up here in Reykjavik and a few in a private house, some left over which were to go on show but he doesn't recall the show ever taking place. He or she said they were bought in good faith, but thought it odd as they were shipped over when all the ships were being bombed in WW2, the next day the catheral got bombed, stated Coventry was offered them back but said they didn't want them, as they were only from 1800s. Typical but your last comment Rob had me rolling on the floor laughing my head off.

Midland Red, I was in Akureyri a few weeks ago - that picture is the view you get from the ship where it docks. It's just a short walk into the town, which is a lovely, clean and bright place. We were fortunate that the weather was just like that, a bright, warm and sunny day. The church stands on a hill and the Coventry glass is in the end farthest away in the picture. Unfortunately we only saw it from the outside as the church was closed on the day for a funeral. There is more of the Coventry glass in the church in Reykjavik, but we didn't get to that either as we spent that day viewing the incredible sights of Iceland, volcanoes, waterfalls, geysers and the point where the tectonic plates of two continents meet. It is a truly incredible country, very important from a geological point of view. Coincidentally, the population of the whole country is almost identical to that of Coventry.

Amazing story - never knew about the Icelandic glass. It would be fantastic to see it returned to Coventry though wouldn't it? I recall several times being fascinated spotting fragments of coloured glass still stuck in tiny corners of the bombed out frames.

Does anyone know the name of the person who carved the wooden mice on the altar surround in the old cathedral,on the charred remains.

I read somewhere that the stone from the cathedral was dumped where Coventry Zoo was, up in Whitley. I also read that if they had acted quicker after the war, the old cathedral could have been rebuilt and restored. Not sure how true this is, but buildings in Germany that were damaged far worse than St Michael's were rebuilt/restored, and some of it a long time after the war ended (and I believe the Victorians had already heavily restored it as well. If you look at photographs from the 1800s of the cathedral tower it looks nothing like it does today).

It was a deliberate policy decision by the Church to leave the old cathedral derelict as an anti-war protest. Likewise, the plans for a triumphal arch and Roman-style victory columns in Broadgate were abandoned by the Council for the same reason. The elephant-on-a-stick is the only surviving remnant of those plans.

No, it wasn't. The Church originally appointed Sir Gilbert Scott to design a new cathedral in 1942, and his cathedral was in the traditional style but would have retained (I think) the surviving spire with a new body built to replace the ruined medieval body. His design was criticised for being too backward looking, and did not go ahead - maybe the belief was that 'new' city would be modern looking and a Gothic revival cathedral would be at odds with the rest of the city (which was going to be demolished anyway). The competition brief only stipulated that only the tower and crypts had to be incorporated into the new design. Basil Spence's design, which did keep the old ruins as they were, won - Spence described how he decided to make the ruins part of the 'new' cathedral when he visited Coventry and stood in the ruins and felt that it was still a cathedral, even thought it lacked a roof, and his idea was for the 'new' cathedral to be a part of the old cathedral. I have seen some of the other entries, and most of them do not contain the ruins. I am not even sure it was retained as an anti-war statement, more Basil Spence's personal feeling about the old ruins. It's been a while since I've read 'Phoenix at Coventry'. Some people thought Spence's building wasn't modern enough; he apparently got hate mail about it as well, with people calling it a concrete cockroach (Although it's a concrete structure, it's clad in stone.) I'm not in the slightest bit religious, but think it's a fabulous building, although the area around it is badly laid out, especially at the back end by the old DeVere hotel. However, it fits in well with the 'old' buildings due to the materials it is built from. It has aged well, unlike the rest of the city. It makes the University buildings looks cheap and nasty. I wouldn't say the 'ruins' are derelict. They are maintained constantly and have been turned into what is effectively a space for art and memorials. Derelict implies neglect, and these ruins are certainly not neglected.

As always Flapdoodle, you make many great points. I'm fairly sure, however, that Dutchman didn't mean those words quite as literally as they sound, and probably loosely meant to say that the cathedral was retained as a ruin and place of remembrance. If I'm wrong I'm sure he'll correct me though! Goodness knows why so many people in the late 50s / early 60s branded the New Cathedral as a concrete monstrosity though. When looking at the cathedral there's barely a square inch of concrete anywhere in sight! Some people will always display a negative viewpoint on principle though. Fortunately, the general public's perception of the cathedral has become much kinder over the years, although obviously "you'll never please all of the people all of the time". Years ago I was of the opinion that it would've been a great idea to rebuild it, too. However, having heard various reasons why that was so impractical, it's now obvious that it shouldn't have been done. The surviving outer walls were badly weakened by the heat of the flames and the wrenching effect of the innards of the building collapsing. Reconstructing the medieval pillars, clerestory, window tracery, etc. would've been an horrendous and extremely expensive task. I'm not even sure if rebuilding with newly cut sandstone would've looked right - quite a mismatch in colour and texture, as is evident in the New Cathedral's fabric. All this is only my personal opinion, of course, but I'm glad we still have those old ruins for remembrance and a New Cathedral to contrast with it.

Yes I did! There was huge shift of opinion within the Church between 1942 and 1950 when the final design was chosen. Many of the new priests were former RAF bomber pilots who'd witnessed the destruction reigned down on German cities and feared the same thing could happen to Britain with the rise of the Soviet Union and the Cold War.

Oh, fair enough! That's a period I'm not so familiar with regarding this subject - can you recommend any particular reading that would enlighten me?