Holy Trinity Church and Bell Tower

I took this photograph around 1966 on a rather dark day. I seem to recall the belfry was removed within a couple of years of this but I do not have a better estimate about this. By the way I've been looking at the website for quite a while and decided to take the plunge and put my first post up. Have really enjoyed looking around my old haunts courtesy of the various galleries posted, thanks!

I like that picture, it's very atmospheric. Looks like something from a horror film! I seem to recall there was some sort of church centre near there back in the 1990s.

It is a super picture indeed. And I think Earlsdon Kid is correct about when it was taken down, too. I'm sure I read somewhere that it was in 1968, but for the life of me I can't locate the book I saw it in.

From "Church Bells of Warwickshire" Coventry's power split in medieval times is really demonstrated here. This church all but shares a churchyard with the St Michael's church, now the Cathedral. This is because Coventry used to be split into two power bases, the Crown and the Earl. The boundary line was between the two churches. Holy Trinity was "Gilbert Scotted" during the restoration of the 1850s, in that the central tower's floors were removed to let more light into the building. The bells therefore could no longer remain in that tower. There were six bells until 1776 when Pack & Chapman provided a new ring of eight, tenor 20-0-18. Six peals rung on the bells (including one of 10,128 in 1787) between 1776 and 1807. The bells, with the front 7 recast, were hung in a wooden campanile to the side of the church in 1856, the tenor subsequently being recast in 1898). This tower was never strong enough to hold a ringing peal. Peter Border told me of a time when he rang up the tenor by its wheel to frame height - and then he rang it back down very quickly amidst a mass of creaks and groans! Chris Pickford tells me that there is little evidence that the bells were ever rung regularly in this wooden tower. However, he has found a report of some ringing on the front 6 in the latter part of the 19th century. After a decade of storage at Taylor's foundry, the bells were sold to Christchurch Cathedral in New Zealand for the value of the metal and then incorporated into their new ring of 12. These bells are currently in storage following the destruction of the Cathedral by an earthquake in February 2011. Chris Pickford in his book on Coventry Cathedral bells says that 2 bells were cracked by 1831 and they were taken down until 1841 after which they were chimed only until 1854. There has been repeated structural trouble with the tower, (which again needed a major restoration in 2000). Seven bells were then recast by Mears and all 8 put in the campanile. The tenor was recast in 1898 and the whole lot demolished in 1966/7.

I spoke to my parents earlier today and this fits in with their recollections regarding the church centre flapdoodle mentions. I did a little more searching and found an older group photo taken at a "Holiday Club at Hill Top" (maybe in 1965) which I attended during school holidays. This was held in an old wooden building which was most likely somewhere behind 7 Priory Row. Thanks for the comments on the belfry photo which was taken on my first SLR, a Zenit B, and a product of my early darkroom attempts after graduating from an old 120 box camera.

There is a bit of Tales of the Unexpected about that image.

Some interesting images in the Telegraph here . . . I love looking at the small snippets of the real Old Cov that are still lurking/hidden away.

Good find Neil. I'm itching to rummage through the old pictures in some of the shots but I fear I would get wedged in the stairs.

I'd love to look around there but not sure my head for heights (or lack of!) would stand up to it?!

By chance, I came across a leaflet relating to the opening and dedication of the Church Centre dated 6th September 1975 on the Priory Row site which formerly housed the campanile. According to the leaflet, the first time that the idea of building a hall or centre on the Priory Row site was suggested way back in 1958 when Canon G W Clitheroe (Vicar, 1931-1964) listed this project among a number of financial responsibilities facing Holy Trinity at that time. The estimate for such a building then was £40,000 but an initial £3,500 was required to remove the church bells from the timber campanile to their original home in the bell tower. Nothing more appears to have happened until 1968 when architects were asked to prepare block and sketch plans for the Church Centre by Canon Lawrence Jackson (Vicar, 1965-1973). It was during Canon Jackson's encumbency that outline planning permission was granted, the timber campanile was finally demolished and permission was sought and granted for the use of the site for building purposes. As MR has subsequently stated, the church bells were removed to Taylor's Yard in Loughborough never to return, due to the cost of their replacement in the tower having become prohibitive. The estimate of 1968 suggested by Earlsdon Kid therefore appears to be very accurate.

Here's stunning photo of the Great West Window

The best I have seen yet. If you play around with your brightness key, you can watch the sun come up outside.

Ah Dreamtime but I do not have a tablet and I don't know of such on my PC

HelenF, a bit of the Tales of the Unexpected. Priory Row always had that look, everyone thought it was spooky - the trees, the graveyard, the bell tower, even the church was dark and dismal. Few people walked down the row, preferred to walk between the churches, until after the bombing, then the cathedral used Holy Trinity for its services and people used the row more.