Coventry's origins

Well I believe my story carries more weight. The convent was destroyed, there was a tree, and it was bang on the time when Leofric started to put up buildings, but there are many versions as to the name. In olden times the letter F replaced the letter S and sometimes the letter N was missing, so I like to think you have the name with the Convent, add the tree.

Here's a thought or several. The river Cune was the name of one of the sources of the Sherbourne or the Sherbourne itself. Coundon is the vicinity of one of the sources of the Sherbourne. Rob's page about the city's name "The earliest reference to our settlement was actually Couaentree". Couaen don sounds like Coundon. If you throw in the Latin writing scribes writing 'u' as a 'v', to me it sounds very plausible that the two places were named after the river. Probably a red herring but - Cune- plus endings can mean wedge in Latin. There is the Coundon Wedge, although that seems to be a modern name, perhaps it has an older source? Kaga, convent tre, is also very plausible. Cofa's tree seems the least likely.

JayC Babbu Lacu was the old name for Bablake I believe, and there were always great pools of water around Coventry for the mills, but I can't locate where you get the word from. I only heard the name once and can't recall, neither can I locate Rob's word Couaentree. All confusing history.

The old records of Coventry weren't written in modern English and the names could be Latin or some form of Old English where the spellings were all over the place. I've not seen a record of a time when Babu Lacu existed or its exact dimensions. It may even be a myth. I'm guessing that it enclosed those spaces that flooded periodically and can be tracked in photos of flooding before the war. Did the name extend back to Roman times? Maybe or maybe just to the times Latin was the main written language. Back in the Roman era the climate was much as it is now. Wet periods have come and gone irrespective of warming and reflect the phases of the Atlantic. We are currently in a wet phase. Once the monasteries arrived, they introduced a lot of water management and it might be them that removed the majority of the lakes and marshy areas. One of the earliest acts might have been to speed up the exit of the water along the Sherbourne at Gosford. The river meandered significantly even as late as 1850 but already had sections straightened to speed the river up. Since then the river has had many more adjustments. Even the land in Coventry has been built up, raising it up from the water table. Current surface water flood risk areas in and around Coventry From this modern map you can see potential for a lake.

Fascinating map Helen. I assume most of the flood-risk areas are along the courses of the many streams we have in Coventry, albeit many of them are culverted. Some areas at risk, though, seem to be not along watercourses. Are they, I wonder, lines of underground storm water drains which my be overwhelmed during high rainfall events.

Helen, I know all that. I just realised where the name Babbu Lacu came from, and it came from Rob. Yes, it was a type of Latin, and yes I found this from travelling to Rome in 1957. Now I don't think those types of books are in Coventry anymore, so Rob must have done some deep research, or otherwise? I hate putting him on the spot like this, but he also mentioned Mary Dormer Harris, a 19th century historian who I believe has been proved wrong recently,

It could be a lot of reasons. There even seems to be faint line of the ditch from Greyfriars to the river. I could do with a better resolution.

You're right, a lot of the old records were destroyed and sometimes the only reference is a much later account, including those by Mary Dormer Harris. I'm sure she will have got some things wrong but not everything. In many cases she will have made the same assumptions that Pennant did. The Leet books are helpful but only go back so far. It's obvious that the river through the city is highly man made. If we can't trust the books, we can at least see the persisting names - Bablake.

Ditches would be a good pointer. As farmland was built on I suppose the builders would have just filled them in - I think that's the case between my house and the neighbour's property. After heavy rain the soil by our dividing fence easily becomes waterlogged, but not so bad now as we've planted a couple of trees to soak up the water.