City Wall and Gates (inc. Cook Street)

Great pics as always Neil. Do you know the dates of each pic? I notice there are no castellation's on the 2nd picture.

Neil may know better but these are usually quite hard to date. The first is post war, the second is some time before 1931. The image is earlier rather than later because the windows still had shutters for security and warmth but not as early as this photo which was some time between 1860 and 1888.

Liking the detail on this one as well

On our way to Gran's in George St. back in the 50`s we used to call in the little shop and buy some chocolate for her. It's an earlier picture of the buildings as the buildings on the right were no longer there, I think Lady Herbert's Garden replaced them. Stand corrected if I am wrong.

What was the reason that Coventry rose to prominence over its neighbouring towns such as Kenilworth, Rugby, Nuneaton, Stratford etc. to require city walls and gates in the medieval period? Was it a main crossing point east/west north/south or a prominent trading centre?

I could be wrong but the main reason was woollen cloth. It was high quality and high value. The area was excellent for sheep. Unfortunately Coventry didn't have many strings to its bow and when there was a crisis in the country, people stopped buying high end products and the city fell on very hard times. The plague decimated the city too. It experienced similar trouble to Lavenham in Suffolk, which is why both had very rich medieval buildings that survived. Basically few could afford to replace them with the latest style. The defences were as much showing off and stopping traders, so that they'd pay tax, as for protection or they'd have finished them faster. They'd pick up the pace and or repair it whenever there was trouble brewing.

I like to pick up Coventry images that may show something different about the old city but it's hard to know if the artist captured something real or they made it up. The two pictures below just showed up on Easy Live auction site. Having identified the probable artist, it's unlikely that he saw the real gates but there are details that are interesting. Most notable is the lamps shown on the gates. While not apparent on other sketches of the gates, they were a feature at one point on other buildings, though I can't remember where I saw one. The additional structures round the gates, especially those on the Gosford Gate picture, do tie in with other information I have. So is this a case of a good imagination or perhaps a copy of an older painting?

© Historic England Exterior view showing bomb damaged cottages on Cook Street (1941) The clarity of these latest images with the ability to zoom in is amazing

I particularly like this one. The remaining building and the destroyed one in the foreground were those that could been seen if you looked up Silver Street before the war. As shown by the cobbled entry, there was a passageway through to the yard at the back.

There is this one as well Helen which is 11-12 but I think we've seen this one before (still great detail on the upload though!)