Charterhouse, London Road

Medieval wall painting, St Ann's Charterhouse

The name Charterhouse has nothing to do with a charter or grant, as would at first appear, but arose from the building of a house for Carthusian monks from Chartreuse, their original monastic foundation in the Diocese of Grenoble in France. In Coventry it was in 1381 when Lord de la Zouch founded the house for six monks. King Richard laid the foundation stone. They increased in number, never going outside the walls, did not socialise with women, vegetarians six days a week - on Fridays they fasted with only bread and water.

Charterhouse to form centrepiece of Heritage Park

Does this also include plans to clear trees blocking the view of the viaduct?

Terrific to see the NT are stepping in here to work with Charterhouse!

I've heard they are opening up the air raid shelter opposite the Charterhouse field as part of the project. Does anyone know if they are just going to remove the current gates on the blast doors, or are they removing the whole wall to open the whole arch

Pictures of the inside of the Mortuary and passage at the moment, sorry quality isn't the best, but there is no lighting in there. Derek.

How did you get in, Robthu? Both gates were padlocked when I went last week.

p fandango. Didn't you know, Robthu can do anything

lol - with the help of bolt cutters I suspect

No! For once in this Warwickshire man's life, it was all legal and above board, it was unlocked and I went in as part of a Bat Survey. The downside of it was, I had only a small camera in my pocket that certainly wasn't up to that sort of thing. Derek.

Oh excellent. I was lucky to have got some bats on video using a night-vision camera on a ghost night at Guy's Cliffe House. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSh8YyZ6i9Y&t

You turn your back... Since there are thousands of things to research in Coventry I do bits on an area and then stop when I get bored or run out of fresh info. Often when I come back, new things pop out at me. Such a thing is the mills of Coventry, many of which are on the route south. On the field opposite the Charterhouse is an anomaly in the grass that looks like a different route for the river and possibly a missing mill. I thought I might go look at the land again from the air again, only they've built on it! Bah humbug.

Helen, there are a lot of mentions of Charterhouse Mill in the 19th century newspapers. It belonged to Charles Rotherham. It was part owned by William Burton of Allesley who bought it in 1871 from Rotherham's executors. He later had to call in the receivers. In 1932 a new waterway was opened. In order to do this Parliamentary powers were obtained and the mill was acquired and demolished. Not Coventry, but it is on the Coventry canal, here is what they can do to preserve a mill. Most of this building has been empty for many years, only the ground floor was used - Tolson's Mill, Tamworth ps. There is a painting by Herbert Cox of Charterhouse Mill, I am not sure if it is ok to copy it, but it is on The Watercolour World.

Thanks Anne and argon for the link to Watercolour World. Bunney also drew it a couple of times. Robthu - Derek also sent me some cracking stuff, including reports on bomb damage that show grass markings from the war period, which show something opposite Charterhouse that looks a lot like a mill pond. The maps show something odd too. I've copied the British History Online for mills. I've now got images for Shut Mill, Charterhouse mill, Liggin's Mill and Swift's Corner Mill (after working out that the drawings are probably labelled the wrong way round). But there seems to be a mill missing - Dilcock's mill. Alternatively they've just got the other mills mixed up. A map from before the railway was built would help. I've peered through viaduct arches till I'm silly as I first have to work out which way the artist was looking. The river was most likely moved for the viaduct and for all I know a mill was swallowed by the earthworks.