Priory Street

More thanks to Coventry Smorgasbord - I like this kind of image as it reflects both the Coventry I knew with the Pool Meadow Cafe and clock with the old (Triumph buildings etc.) so I can compare the two with how I knew it - Easter Monday 1939. Sunday schools procession leaving Pool Meadow. Between 6 and 7,000 children from more than twenty Sunday schools took part in the 62nd Easter festival and procession of the Coventry and District Sunday School Union. The children and their teachers assembled on Pool Meadow where a short service was held. Mr. Grant Beamish, in a short address, spoke of the good work done by Sunday school teachers locally and went on to refer to conditions in "a chaotic world." The hymns sung were "Welcome, happy morning," "Angel voices ever singing," "All the beauty I behold," and "Land of our birth." The Rev. H. I. James said the prayer, and a collection was taken to assist the union's funds. After the service the children marched in procession through the city, taking the following route: Priory Street, Ford Street, Hales Street, Cross Cheaping, Broadgate, High Street, Cross Cheaping, Broadgate, High Street, Earl Street, Jordan Well, Cox Street, Swanswell Street, Harnall Lane, and Foleshill Road. Foleshill Salvation Army Band led the procession, and other bands taking part were Lockhurst Lane Drum and Fife Band, St. Alban's Salvation Army Band, Foleshill Road Bugle Band, Coventry Salvation Army No.2 Band, and Stoke Salvation Army Band. The Sunday schools represented were Canley, Foleshill Road, Lockhurst Lane, Holbrooks, Jesmond Road, Durbar Avenue, Broad Street, Paradise Salvation Army Nos 2 & 3, Stoney Stanton Road, Heath Road, West Orchard, Radford Congregational, Well Street, Gosford Street, Ford Street, Vine Street, Earlsdon, Radford Baptist, Stoke, Salvation Army No. 1, St. Michael's Baptist, Lime Tree Park, and a newly formed school from Cheylesmore.

© Historic Coventry Queen Elizabeth II and the Bishop of Coventry standing outside Coventry Cathedral on the day of the consecration service, watched by the press and crowds - 25/05/62 Including this one for the capture on the left of what must have been the final days of the original properties on Priory Street

Two views looking towards Priory Street. A photo from CD and an almost matching etching from Rob's collection. I even think the trees and fence in the foreground are the same ones, so making them real, not artistic license as I speculated a while back. I think that the embanked street running from the right is Fairfax Street (very different to the modern location) at the time of the 1888 map, running into Ford Street at right angle to it.

What a wonderful coincidence - one beautiful view created by two very different mediums. At first I thought that the artist had drawn a picture based on the photograph, but perhaps it just happened to be a specific location around that period that easily lent itself to artists and photographers.

Oh wow. What an image!!!!

One of the things that is not obvious is that Priory Street was built on a causeway. This had a threefold effect. It raised the road above the boggy area adjacent to the river. It smoothed out the rolling landscape and it raised the road up to the new bridge over the Sherbourne. The following are two pictures of a timber mill that was on priory land, showing how it was very much below the road at that time, such that they'd knocked through a new doorway that was accessed by a gangway from the road. I have earlier images where there was no central doorway on that side and it would have been accessed from the other side where there was a tree lined track running from New Buildings. The mill had a water supply but was steam by the time it was pictured. The causeway continued on the north side of the river. The fenced off roads you can see in the photo and the etching in post #33 were also on embanked. This was probably for two reasons. Firstly to level off the area but these properties possibly came with cellars meaning that less digging to sink them into the soggy ground would have been required.

Brill again Helen - I'd not seen that photo before........

That is a fantastic match-up of that wonderful photo with the lovely snippet from the picture above. It's a picture that's always intrigued me. Amazing stuff, Helen! Dave McGrory once told me that long before Priory Street or even the city wall existed, the river was crossed at that point by a bed of bones, forming a kind of ford. Later the wall was built to bridge across that that point, before later being rerouted further north to enclose the prior's pool (Pool Meadow). Shelton also wrote about this in his Austin's Monthly Magazine article of November 1933.

The Bradford map shows a small bridge on the west side of the priory building above with a path or boundary towards the Swanswell Gate. Spring Grove was just to the east of the corner tower of Pool Meadow (recently unearthed). It was a little terrace of houses that were off Spinney Lane that later became the upper part of Cox Street. When upper Cox Street was built they must have culverted or diverted the main bypass from the Swanswell Pool. There were at least 3 different channels coming out of the Swanswell Pool itself (some via the Swanswell mill) that slowly vanished after the Bradford Map was drawn. Some were still there on the 1850 BoH map, which I'm fairly sure that Shelton didn't have access to. He often dug up features that were still visible on the 1850 map and appeared in Dr Troughton's drawings but had gone by 1888, which may have been the map Shelton was working to. The back of the baths was the line of the wall round Pool Meadow, so did he find a road or did he find the remains of the wall that had been repurposed as a path? Either way there were a lot of market gardens with many paths between and around them in the area, fed by the water channels coming out of Swanswell Pool. I'm really not sure where the wall ran before it was diverted round the Prior's fish ponds but it wasn't as far over as Cox Street, so the bed of bones must be to do with the later wall building on the north side of the river or for where it ran along the south edge of the river before the pool was enclosed. I think all of that article must be further over to the east of Priory Street.

Ah, I should've clarified - the article by Shelton was only linked as an example of a bed of bones, but isn't referring to the same place, although fairly nearby. It's very likely that the bridge in David Gee's beautiful Priory Street painting was also originally either a "bone-bed ford", or built next to one, as Shelton explains it being a possible method by which the builders could traverse the river while still allowing water to flow through. I think many of us are sincerely hoping that when, sadly, the swimming baths is demolished, some archaeology will be done around that area to find the true line of the city wall along the south side of the river.

Based on the name Jordan Well which was a medieval well on land owned by local merchant Jordan Shepey, I could imagine the boggy area around Priory Street could be due to excess water supplying Jordan Well. Incidentally, Jordan Shepey, was a Mayor of Coventry.

I think that when they built the Triumph Works (from Priory Street to Cox Street) over part of which the modern baths was built, almost everything would have been destroyed on the south side of the river and most of the river and its immediate bank are under the modern Fairfax Street (not the same as the one mentioned above). I'm guessing that it was the land clearance before they built the works, that Shelton oversaw. While there were already houses in that area, only some on the north side of the river survived the demolition, alongside upper Cox Street. Those included Spring Grove. The Baths that he mentions were on the north side and yes, the rear yard to that stood over the city wall. The modern baths/sports centre partly stands on the pool that served the Earl's mill and might reveal where the wall ran round it, though I have my doubts. But that part of the wall would have been the same before and after the detour round the Prior's ponds. The place to dig for the original wall route would be under the bus station. Perhaps a test trench across one of the internal roads? The best location to dig though would be the north pavement of Fairfax Street between the Britannia and Priory Street. The little bridge on the Bradford Map was between Priory Street and the exit of the mill race off the Priory Pool. The straight wall line on the map, coming in from the left. Here roughly where the zebra crossing is now. However to my mind the other logical place for the old route to cross the river would have been in line with the wall coming down from the Cook Street gate. The reason to head directly to the river is because it doubled as a moat. The problem with interpreting Shelton's writings is the number of changes before the war, never mind afterwards. I'm sure that he writes about finding the base of a tower that was part of the original route but there is no good reference to where it was though I think that there was reference to a mill but which one? The first one at the most southern part of the Priory pond; the later saw mill near the sluices; the one next to Priory Street above (which I think was a fulling mill originally)?

Hi all, Below is a modified snippet from my City Wall overlaid on Google Maps page. In yellow is where I believe the first instance of the wall ran, and in the salmon colour where it ended up finally. The north-south section, including the half-round tower, we know is correct since the dig in 2017. Obviously anywhere along the yellow stretch should reveal the original wall footings, where they might still survive buried, but when the baths go (highlighted in brown), I think somewhere along where I've added a dotted red outline to the yellow "wall" would be a handy place to dig, in order to establish that the wall did indeed project westwards from where it joined the later river crossing.

It all depends how close to the river they placed the wall as to whether the south bank wall sat under Fairfax Street or the buildings. However I don't think that river crossing could have been as far over as Priory Street because the little bridge was on the other side of the funny little building in the pictures of Priory Street. I'm guessing that this photo was taken from the Priory Street Bridge looking back at roughly where the little bridge was. It's not obvious that there was anything in the soil. Look how deep it all was.

Oh my word, Helen, you're absolutely right!!! I had no idea before about that "funny little building", and had assumed that it must've been on the east side of Priory Street when I overlaid the maps years ago. With the 1610 and 1749 maps being very much "not to scale", I wasn't able at the time to be certain of the exact historical line of Priory Street. Thank you so much! I will now alter the coordinates to move the yellow line on the HC Google Map. I guess that in this super photo just above, the photographer must've been standing between the letters 'O' and 'U' of SHERBOURNE in the 1749 map snippet above it, looking westwards at the river, towards the Fire Station. In this case, I would estimate that the City Wall would've crossed the river just in front of him/her, then continued under the wooden buildings on the left and behind, back towards the Swimming Baths built in the 1960s. In this case I believe it still gives plenty of scope for some archaeology outside the entrance to the baths (or, if they ever demolish the green student block along Fairfax Street, beneath that), to locate the original wall.