Archaeology around Coventry

This was the view when they decided to resurface the road outside my home around 10 years ago. The problem I find is that with such a hard base any noise is reflected.

I keep coming across archaeology assessments by accident. I'll link to them from here as I find them. Christchurch House, New Union Street

Helen F. I think if I was living in Coventry today, it wouldn't be archaeology I would be looking at, it would be if my house lay above the old mine shafts, the thousands of sink holes appearing!

26-28 St Nicholas Street Astley's Paints Far Gosford part1 Astley's Paints Far Gosford part2 Millennium View Hales Street Alma Street Belgrade Plaza

Ikea site part1 68-70 Whitefriars Street Astley's Paints Far Gosford part3 115 116 Far Gosford Street Swanswell Street Astley's Paints Far Gosford part4

Bond Street White Friars Lane car park Greyhound Much Park Street Fire Station Hales Street Grey Friars Road St Mary's

Ikea site part 2 Bayley Lane, Herbert Art Gallery Bayley Lane, Drapers Hall Priory Street part 1 Priory Street part 2 Whitefriars Lane, Tiny Tims Upper Well Street, Salvation Army

St John's Street Development Plan for the Burges with background info and photos Hales Street and Palmer Lane

Not exactly archaeology but from the image of the back of the grammar school we get a picture of a small pillar. This was rumoured to be Roman and existed in 1819 when William Henry Brooke sketched it. The theory is that it had been there since the Romans visited the Babu Lacu and it might have been part of a temple. J B Shelton claimed that there was the makings of a road crossing the Sherbourne to the east of the Burges that might have been a much older route through the town. The pillar might have been something to do with it. Or it might have been a bit of architectural salvage set up in the school garden. Note how much more crisp and detailed the sketched stonework was. The pillar had already lost a layer by the time it was photographed and it's now probably long since dissolved. The pillar looks like it was made of blonde sandstone, so not the usual Coventry red kind that was super soft and decayed very quickly. How much of original city was still original by WWII?

Whereabouts exactly was it, Helen? You know Rob and I are now going to have to have a look around!

Hi Neil. It was at the base of the right hand buttress at the back wall of the building. For a long time the area has been blocked off but this Google view shows that it's gone. When it went I don't know but nobody I've met had heard of it at all. Where the pillar was.

Darn it!

Helen, looking at the Google Maps image, the base could potentially still be under the ground level that appears raised today? As mentioned - if not already dissolved though.

Possibly Neil, but knowledge of it doesn't seem to be shared with anyone I've met. I asked a few people in context of it maybe being Roman but got totally blank responses. I'd read about it before I ever saw a picture of it, so I was surprised that it was so unknown. Looking at the various pictures, I'm guessing that the shrubs in the oldest photo turned into small trees. The roots or branches may have upturned the stones. Then the lot were removed when the Opera House was built or the school was refurbished. The area looks like it was used as a delivery/storage area with a lowered pavement. The pillar would have just been an obstruction. It might seem to be the ignorance of the past but when I was at Courtaulds, contractors found church stonework * in a job they were doing but didn't mention it until the stone had been carted off and the hole filled in again. *As in maybe the church of Old Church Road?