Lady Godiva

Nothing wrong with the poem Slim.

Tiny Pennies

Watching last evenings "The Repair Shop" tonight, someone had taken in an old painting, painted in the late 1940's by the artist Ben Enwonwu. Whilst the narration talked a little about the artist they showed a fleeting glimpse of what I would suppose was his workshop. There appeared to be two people working there and in the background was a large sculpture. A few seconds on from this it suddenly struck me that I thought something seemed familiar. I rewound the recording to discover..... Lady Godiva - the statue that we have in Broadgate! Does anyone know anything more about where this "workshop" would have been? Here is a quick snapshot of what was shown on screen...

As far as I tell from the internet his workshop was in Nigeria but he did study in the UK. I cannot find any connection to the Lady Godiva Statue Tony.

Ben Enwonwu did study in Oxford in the 1940's so could well have been sharing the studio with Sir William Reid Dick who was the sculptor who created the Lady Godiva statue. He lived between 1879 and 1961 so could well have been the figure in the photograph with his back to camera. He was King's Sculptor to King George VI between 1938 and 1952.

You could well be right Not Local. There is a picture on Google from the National Portrait Gallery of him with the statue in front of a dark curtain as in the picture but it won't let me link it!

Another picture from the Sketch 1946, from the newspaper archive, spot on Not Local

The statue of Godiva on the plinth in your picture Anne looks as though it could be a scale model of the final figure. In the pic I took off the TV screen the horse and rider appear to be full-size, but minus the plinth.

I agree Tony. Trying to piece together a bit of history from the newspaper Bassett Green commissioned Reid Dick to produce a design for the statue he wished to donate to the city in 1936. RD created a 2/3 statue in secret which is probably the one in the newspaper picture. There is a picture in the Telegraph of RD in 1939 with Lutyens who apparently designed the plinth. I came across this interesting picture on the newspaper archive site of how they imagined it would look from 1937 using a statuette from the Mayor's parlour and 1937's photoshop! Looking again at the 2 pictures I thought that the statue on the left was the same one but looking again is it me or is the head on one different to the other. Just realised that there is also a statue on the right of the picture which is the same.

I see ye olde clock has crept in the picture too Anne. I think it has a mind of its own.

Following some recent discussion on FB regarding the Godiva statue I have only just learned from the Coventry Society that William Bassett-Green was grandson of Eli Green who built the Vernon Street triangle.

Where did Leofric and Godiva live while in Coventry?

That's a great question, and I wish I had a great answer! Although their connections with Coventry were well documented, from what I've read and been told there has never been any document found that actually places Godgifu here in the town. She almost certainly was here, it's just that we have nothing on record to prove it. Leofric I'm not so sure about - I think there might be proof of him being here, but I can't recall where I read it.

It may be that Leofric and Godiva lived part of the time in Evesham, Worcs. There is a record that Leofric had a vision in Evesham Abbey. Would the obvious place in Coventry be the Castle or was it built later? There is a genealogy on line I just found: both Leofric and Godiva were born in Leicestershire, but Godiva's parents were from Lincoln. Godiva survived Leofric by ten years and she, and Leofric before her, were both said to be buried in Coventry (St Mary's).

Many of the history books refer to "Cheylesmore Castle" being the residence of Leofric. Mentioned as pre-dating the manor house about 100 yards south of it. One book refers to "The Lordly towers of Cheylesmore the castle of Leofric " but the book isn't dated and there is no reference as to where the information came from.