Broadgate

They made a terrible mistake with Broadgate when the stuck the Owen Owen building across the top of the Burges and a bridge over the end of Hertford Street.

I'm not too happy with the first Owen Owen because of what was destroyed to get it there, and if the previous buildings were still there would they have isolated bomb damage compared to one big 'internally open' building being hit. The second Owen Owen ruined the flow of the city centre and is far too big for its location. I wish the council would just get rid of that bridge and give the bank building its freedom.

Mister D-Di, Let's get something straight about Broadgate, it was not a wasted space, the space was made by the bombing, and before the rubble was cleared there was a small concrete island erected to divert the traffic in a clockwise fashion. Between the war ending and the fifties, an island was built of lawn and flower beds and a statue. The people never trespassed on the garden. It was sacrosanct, not by authority, but by the people, who thought it would remain, as the history of that tragic night. And I for one thought it would stay like that for ever. But how quickly our younger generation destroyed that legacy, to push it back in history.

If you look at the original plans for Coventry, Owen Owen made more sense. There was a road running along the side of the square down to the bus station and Broadgate would have effectively been a road with a square alongside it with the top of the Precinct in it and Owen Owen on one side and Hertford Street on the other. The High Street would have been shortened and new buildings between the Cathedral and Broadgate would have formed a 'passageway' to the Cathedral (about where the County Court is). This layout never really happened so it ended up as a 'dog leg'. I actually think the original plan would have been better, but hey ho. Coventry suffered growing economic problems started in the 1960s/early 1970s and many local people have said similar things to 'Mister Di Di' about Broadgate being the place to go to get drunk. Suffering unemployment levels like that in a city with a poorly managed economy that was too reliant on a handful factories was never going to end well. If you want to play the 'generation blame' game, then which generation started the war? Which generation economically mismanaged the country for decades leading to the collapse in the sixties and seventies? Which generation demolished perfectly decent and restorable cities and turned them into concrete slums? Makes sitting in a dismal square surrounded by run down post-war buildings and semi-derelict temporary shops drinking a bit of beer somewhat less damaging (not to mention the generation that totally ignored warning about the city's lack of diversity in its economy!).

Sounds interesting, is there a picture of that plan?

I think the old cathedral is the most poignant reminder of the bombing. It says everything that needs to be said about beauty and heritage and lives destroyed. The Godiva statue never struck me as a post war emblem, it's not self explanatory and I've never been close enough to examine it. The first time I saw it I though it was rather sad surrounded on three sides by belching buses and an argument about the canopy they erected. When I came back to Coventry there was a market in the square and I thought how fitting it was that little stalls had returned to the area that was one of Coventry's oldest market places. The Cathedral is the right and fitting place for sad memories and Broadgate, like Godiva's ride, should be for people.

Although I doubt many would agree with me, I don't actually think Broadgate is the right place for the Godiva statue anyway. Although it's a relatively poor replica of the original, Broadgate should be the home of the Coventry Cross. It was supposed to signify a marketplace and as Broadgate is the meeting of the precinct/High St and Burges/Hertford St it is the most sensible place for it. For me, Godiva would be better near the station to help provide a sense of place for visitors, especially once the new route is established.

Hi, I have no idea of plans or economics, I only know what I saw happen. Now I believe there may have been an Owen Owen store in Coventry in the early thirties, I can't be sure, but around 36 time Coventry went through a lot of rebuilding and tore down Butcher Row area to build Trinity Street as a main shopping street and Owen Owen became part of Trinity Street complex, but they were the last part and had not been built two years before the blitz, if my memory serves me correct. I also believe you have to go back to 1945 time to get to the mood of the people that first thought of the statue, and the gardens and the flowers of the island, they wanted somewhere as a remembrance place, a place to think of the people that died that night, the heroics, the devastation, and where better than the city centre where it happened, and Lady Godiva had been an early symbol in Coventry against oppression so let her lead the way. This was no way religion, this was the ordinary man in the street wanting to pay his respects to all the people of the city that never came through the bombing or war. If I read the mood and intentions wrong then so be it, but that was in my heart, and I still believe it was in the heart of the Coventry people of that time.

Well said Kaga. You were there in 1945 and the years before and after the war, unlike many of us. The grand ideas from back then seem to have been lost over the years to the point that the average man in the street has no idea why the Lady Godiva statue was sited in Broadgate. For the future, it would be nice to see the statue at the centre of a thriving restaurant area in the heart of the city.

Not Local, thank you.

Well said Kaga. Your comments were spot on.

Kaga. I understand and respect your comments and why the statue could mean a great deal to some people and where it is placed. But that link is far from apparent in today's city. It is a message that has almost universally been lost even to those with an interest in history and the city because there is little connection you can make between a rich medieval noblewoman who lost very little after an invasion and the death and destruction inflicted during the war. Even much of what is written is that the statue was a symbol of regeneration rather than remembrance. In which case the station area would be entirely apt for it. One of the main councillors a few years ago (Kevin Foster I think) was campaigning for a lasting symbol to commemorate the WWII dead. So apparently even officials are unaware that this is apparently what the statue is for. (I put forward the idea of a Spire of Light - a collection of small LED lights (one for each victim) to make up a symbol of Coventry that survived the onslaught whilst also reminiscent of the searchlights scanning the sky for enemy bombers) Also there is the Garden of Remembrance and Civilian Monument in London Road cemetery at the site of the mass grave, and the War Memorial Park was already open at this time and would have been an obvious place for any new memorial. For me surely the most important thing as well would have been the quiet green space to sit and contemplate rather than the statue. That has been gone for some time and has been pointed out on here was largely cordoned off and unused anyway other than by people who were .... well-lubricated shall we say... Also, the Godiva legend is now largely seen as little more than a fanciful myth than never actually happened. Is that really what we want to commemorate the greatest catastrophe in the city's history - something that many people suggest never happened? For me the best symbol of remembering the war and the dead is the shell of the old cathedral - it brings home the devastation and destruction.

AD. Yes I respect your comments, but I did say the people of 1945, not today's views. It was the same people that built the Garden of Remembrance, and the War Memorial and the new Statue, that wanted something in the centre of Broadgate as well. There were some people then that thought there was no comparison between Lady Godiva (even if a myth) and the bombing. But they saw oppression as the key, if that's the right way to explain it. You see the Cathedral shell, because that's the only thing left standing, but we saw the devastation of the city, there were more heroics in the city centre than in the Cathedral to my mind. Less than thirty hours after the raid I walked (stumbled) through the city centre, saw grown men with tears in their eyes, disbelief, despair, and tired out with fatigue, heat was still coming up through the rubble. I have seen more than my share of despair, but nothing as vivid in my mind as that night and that scene. 76 years later and I still have moist eyes as I recall that night and the aftermath.

Fascinating time warp on Google Earth: If you go into Street View outside the Flying Standard, you see the top image, and then if you "walk" just a few steps towards Broadgate, it changes to the second view. It's all a matter of when the images were taken - the top one September 2015 and the bottom one October 2010. But it looks REALLY weird, until you realise what's going on!