City Wall and Gates (inc. Cook Street)

I popped over there this morning, hoping to get some photos, but sadly the whole area is surrounded by high fences and locked gates, and it's so overgrown that it's not possible to see where they've been digging. It used to be possible to walk alongside part of it, but no longer!

'The wall once formed part of the city's 2.1-mile-long (3.5km) wall which was completed half a century ago along with 20 towers and 12 gates.' Need some verification on this claim.

Half a century!

The claim of it being completed half a century ago is in a way true as there was much rebuilding done for the Civil War, especially in that area. It included a new tower on the southern corner near Paradise Street. New Street gate itself was rebuilt and possibly substantially changed. The number of gates and towers is complicated because it depends what you count as a gate and a tower. There were the best known 12 gates but there were a number of postern gates that were just defended doorways for local access. One postern gate that seems likely is one at Cheylesmore between the manor house and the known gate. Sometimes there is one shown from the manor itself but I have my doubts about it. The manor is shown as having a tower but the oldest manor building would have looked like a big boxy tower as it was built into the wall. Was there a keep style tower to the west of that? Was it a gate? There might have been a gate for Whitefriars and there was certainly a tower with a shrine of Mary that could be accessed from outside the city. The towers themselves aren't all obvious eg the Wenceslas Hollar northern prospect shows a pair of round towers at Cook Street gate but there is no evidence apart from that drawing that they were there. There is significant evidence that the closest round tower was actually a corner tower in the wall. At least one tower looks like it's missing from the Speed map up between Bishop Street and Hill Street gates. We know about the small oblong tower near the ring road and the round tower nearer Upper Well Street but that's not shown clearly on the map. The tower that can be seen near the Hill Street gate was oblong and used as a magazine (store for weapons). If the small round tower wasn't shown, might there have been others? I have planned to do a count of each feature that has some credible evidence but I have put it off due to the complexity. Basically, as the city felt safer it made more holes in the wall and the main fabric fell apart and when things were bad it was rebuilt and more features were added. Additional - there were also a number of water gates, some with sluices that could redirect the water to the ditch.

Helen. Half a century ago was 1972

Duh! I was thinking half a millennium. Elsewhere the article mentions 500 years.

Apologies for this missive which has a tenuous link to the topic. In Ireland earlier in the year I bought a very nice "Peaky blinders" type of cap. It has eight segments or divisions. I was told by forum member "herberts lad" that a proper Coventry cap, which I had made no claims to it being, should have seven divisions, each one relating to a city gate. I’m not doubting him, but is this correct? I’ll still wear my hat though, it actually fits my big head

Historic Coventry have just put this one up on FB which I've zoomed in on. You can see Cook Street Gate after a stray bomb hit part of the old City Wall. What else can we see here?

Obviously there’s Chauntry Place to the left and Lady Herbert’s Almshouses centre. I guess that’s Courtaulds chimney rising high into the sky.

The chimney is much closer I think, a business off Cook Street itself. In 1950 it seems to be called Central Refinery (Aluminium). BFA

Nice one, Helen, you beat us to it! It looks like the picture might've been taken from the Swanswell pub, marked with an X.

A better view from BFA, Rob. The building on the right of Neil's photo is top right of yours and was part of the C&W hospital, but had originally been the Sir Thomas White School.

I wondered where it was taken from, Rob - great work, guys

The Germans obviously thought King Charles II hadn't done a thorough enough job of demolishing our City Wall!!

Worth a watch - video about doing up the two gatehouses here.