Old Cathedral and Church of St Michael

My father's uncle married in the old Cathedral in Nov 1871 and scores of my family worked in the ribbon factories of Victorian age. They would have known Gutteridge, Beck etc.

My paternal great-grandparents William Whitehead = Mary Agnes Brooks married in St Michael's on 9th February 1880.

Choir from St Lawrence's Chapel. Shows some of the beauty lost to us in the Old Cathedral.

The old Cathedral was built by the Botoners, the founders and builders of the structure. In 1622 we have a peculiar record connected with the spire of St Michael's Church. It appears that a clergyman named Marston was preaching in the church from the text "Be sober, and watch, for the end of all things is at hand", when, to the amazement of the congregation, as he was uttering the conclusion portion of the sentence, a thunderbolt fell on the spire, the stone work falling on to the church roof. The noise and damage done so dreadfully alarmed the congregation that they at once expected the day of judgement to be at hand.

If I remember rightly Kaga, that phrase uttered just prior to the lightning strike was reported in that favourite book of ours, Humorous Reminiscences? It's one of the most genuinely funny coincidences I've ever heard! The Botoners, of course, paid for the enlargement of St. Michael's church, including the tower and spire, but they certainly weren't the founders - the church having stood there in various smaller forms for centuries before them, being gradually enlarged from a small chapel inside the castle grounds in Norman times.

I've wondered how much of St Mary's went towards upgrading and repairing the other churches, especially St Michael's.

Yes, quite a lot I'd have thought - it would've saved a lot of quarrying and stone cutting. I've seen it documented that people were allowed to pay something like a shilling per barrow-load of stone (bartering is welcome if I'm wrong!), but also the later chapels on the north side of St. Michael's were added in the 1500s, so good timing to take advantage of the redundant bulk of St. Mary's.

I also wonder how they date sections of the old buildings given that they were often rebuilt, repaired and remodelled with new and old stone. I've a sneaking suspicion that parts of the south side were moved. The evidence is patchy but 1) there is a very early sketch of the south side that shows the porch standing clear of the chapels either side. 2) Early images of Bayley Lane show further along the road than later ones from what seems like the same viewpoint. 3) The windows on that side were all changed, including new window openings and 2 doorways. There was a lot more similarity between the north and south sides originally.

I'll have to have another look through the George Demidowicz book "The Rise and Fall of the Old Cathedral" - I can't remember if those issues of dating are addressed or not. It's generally the most detailed book about the church's physical history that I've ever seen, though, which I seem to recall you also have?

Helen, That was all later, after Canute's destruction of Coventry and nunnery, these heathen, pagan people. First, Leofric had to build his Benedictine priory, this would be a simple affair, no church, or such, priories did not need them, just a prayer room. An oblong building made of wood, at one end there would be the shape of a bay window, it may have one or two steps up to the bay, here would be a kind of altar that held the statue or faith of the people. The floor would be wooden and highly polished, at the side would be a porch and door into the building. This would be for the monks to enter. They would remove footwear and working clothes and enter the building, in robe and barefoot. Just inside would be small prayer mats, they would take one and place it on the floor facing their religous image. At the far end there would be a bigger porch and door into the building, with benches and pegs for the people to hang clothes, change footwear. Inside there would be the same type of mat, there would be wooden benches or chairs for invalids etc. The monks would chant their prayers, no prayer books, no one walking about, no gimmics, just monks cross-legged on a mats. They would then sing in a beautiful chanting rhythm, it was almost a trance-like feeling, the crowd took part or not, but still no hymn books, nothing to disturb this beautiful, peaceful calm setting, truly fantastic. On the border of France and Switzerland, a small village of Mulhouse complete with Benedictine monks and monastery.

Yes Rob, I've got that book and it is excellent but the south side is much abused by time and rebuilding even before the war. Are the sections dated by records of when bits were added or by dating the inner mortar or some other old feature? Link to image from 1680 of the south side This sketch wasn't in the book, which had the earliest image from 1690 and of the north side. I have some issues with the 1680 image and part of me wonders if it's the northside flipped but I do know that the windows on the south side are later designs. It seems reasonable that the building was more symmetrical originally or at least more exact. A lot of the later renovations weren't as skilled as the original work. The line of the south walls are all over the place and the double right angled buttresses have been replaced with single, diagonal ones. A sign Time Team claimed was a later feature in architectural progress. It is impossible to draw the south view in one go because of the buildings on Bayley Lane although in 1680 there might have been a few openings due to demolition? The poor execution of the drawing could be due to the artist moving to get both ends? Alternatively the artist might have been up on St Mary's Hall roof but I think that the angles would be different? On the present day building there is a distinct joint between the porch and the chapels either side and they know that it was of an earlier age. The whole thing might not have protruded out from the chapels far but might a part of it been proud of them? The RIBA image seems to show what might be a spiral stair to the right of the porch, which ties in with a doorway from the room above the porch. I doubt that any handrail could have extended far or the lane would have been impassable. The most likely answer is that the artists got things wrong but...

I agree Helen, that it's probably more a case of artist's licence than reality. It's quite probable that many such drawings were not even made in-situ, but from memory afterwards. I feel quite certain that St. Michael's would never have had a square porch for a start! And the window spacings are different, although at least the count is correct. Here's a link to the modern Google view. Another feature that I only noticed in recent years after reading that book was the vertical line in the wall seen in the centre here, and more notable for the end of the old sill at ground level. It was this line that marked the extremity of what was the shorter previous church building. I wonder if it was budget constraints that prevented them continuing the sill? Or current architectural fashion? I need that time-machine more than ever now!

Rob, these images are from the 1721 view of the north side of the church. The red dotted line denoted the end of the 1350-1390 church and matches the vertical joint you link to on the south side. It also bounds the end of the crypts on the north side which were originally St Mary on the Hill (red arrow). Note the window styles. The lower part of the earliest windows were long drops without tracery but were all plain diamond glass due to the Reformation. The 2 windows above the crypts have central tracery bars but I think that was a repair. The chapels at the west (right) end of the church are plain all the way to the top and this matches the windows at the east and west of those two chapels. This also matches the earliest interior images of the chapels on the south side, plus the RIBA sketch. The upper designs of the 5 main windows at the east (left) are all the same with the exception of the 3 on the left having a band of extra tracery. This looks original and may reflect the later installation date to the two over the crypts. This shows the porch on the north side and its spiral stairwell. It doesn't protrude much. The south porch is distinct from the chapels either side. It even had a separate tiled and pitched roof (see fold out at the back of the Demidowicz book). There was even a line in the stonework on the left side, where the plinth stops. The plinth still stops today but subsequent repairs has removed the line in the stonework. Note how the windows in the RIBA sketch match the windows on the north side but with fewer tracery columns. The windows in photos of the south side and most sketches are likely to be 'modern' and nothing like the originals. The east end is complicated because there were houses butted up to the church until a few decades before the RIBA sketch. Flipping complicated. After you with the time machine!

At the red arrow in the first picture, this was known as the old bone house or crypt of St Michael's, which you approached from the north through the churchyard, down a flight of steps. It had been in a state of resurrection during the 18th century. The bones of various persons got hopelessly mixed, strange tales are told of skeleton-robbing for anatomical purposes. In 1733 Mr William Lea fell from the battlements of St Michael's Church, and died two days afterwards. During the restoration at Lichfield Cathedral, under the late Sir Gilbert Scott, a Mr Drayton Wyatt (his assistant) was sent to Coventry for the purpose making the measurements of the steeple. Having measured the tower, the octagon, the spire alone remained to be done, but he had bad dreams of falling from it - he packed up his bags to leave, it was a long time before he could be induced to continue the work.

I see exactly what you were referring to now Helen. Yes, that north-side view looks just like it's been mirrored by mistake in that older drawing which shows us, supposedly, the south side. Could that, I wonder, be an example of the artist drawing from memory, and remembering architectural details quite well but not which side of the church he saw them? Kaga, yes I'd read about the bone house, but I can't recall which book I saw it in. I'm sure that Holy Trinity also had something similar, but probably most churches of old had the same common features.