Books on Coventry

Excavations at the cathedral and Bendictine priory of St. Mary Reasonably priced copy of this rare archaeology book by Brian Hobley

"Ships of Heaven" by Christopher Sommerville, is an excellent new book on English Cathedrals. He devoted one chapter to Coventry which I think is excellent. His only error, as I see it, is he "meets a Coventrian with a 'sing song' accent" (had to be a Welshman surely?) but apart from that his description is sensitive, detailed and enough to attract anyone to visit. Thoroughly recommended!

I have just purchased and read a book entitled "The Secret History of the Blitz" by Joshua Levine. It mentions Coventry periodically throughout, but has a chapter dedicated to the city, entitled "The Klondyke of the Midlands", pertaining to the influx of workers from many towns and cities throughout the UK including RoI, the population having grown from 90,000 in 1931 to 250,000 in 1940. The chapter primarily concerns the November Blitz, but also references the IRA bomb of 25th August 1939 and The 'Rex' being bombed a year to the day after and other raids. Albeit I have read 'Moonlight Sonata' there are anecdotes which I was unaware of. Obviously for copyright reasons I cannot narrate exactly, it mentions that a surface shelter in Silver Street suffered a collapsed roof, trapping a number of people. Another shelter on Greyfriars Green had 12 trapped who were communicating with rescuers, however two UXB's were located nearby so the rescue had to be temporarily abandoned. When they had been defused some three days later, only one survivor was found. On a darker note are reflections of the level of crime. Apparently all manner of thieves were committing all manner of offences, from rescue workers, soldiers & labourers. One person received a three month sentence with hard labour for stealing a Georgian church register from the Cathedral ruins! An Irish labourer was convicted of looting bottles of beer from a premises on Windsor Street (looting could be punishable by death!) There are many uplifting memories as well, including Pearl Hyde's famous "Devil's Kitchen" operating out of an underground room at the Central Police Station. Many 'High Society' volunteers helped, including Lady Mary Lygon and the Duchess of Marlborough! Apparently JB Shelton, a local draying contractor, was also an amateur archaeologist who found Roman artefacts/coins unearthed by the bombing. He was the only person apparently allowed to search ruins etc. without fear of arrest for looting! Finally, another anecdote in the book is the story of the caged bird that Kaga referred to previously, in fact it was Hull not Coventry unfortunately. A good book which I encourage you to get from the Library. Post copied from topic The Blitz - 14th November 1940 on 8th Oct 2019 6:13 pm

I met a contingent of the Women's Research Group at the Council House on the Heritage Weekend. Unfortunately I couldn't stop and explore because I already had a list of places to look at. It looks like they've got a fair collection of stuff.

I don't know if this book - Coventry: Thursday, 14 November 1940 - has been mentioned before but it is excellent, and used, very cheap. Post copied from topic The Blitz - 14th November 1940 on 9th Nov 2019 3:14 pm

Rather than begin a new topic for one item, I thought I'd make use of this one for an item that's not directly about Coventry and, strictly speaking, not even a book! I have been given a large manuscript typed by J. B. Shelton all about the village of his birth, Kirkby Woodhouse, which is between Mansfield and Nottingham. If anyone has any interest in this place, please let me know and I'll arrange for you to have it, which also contains a few photos.

Interesting to see J B Shelton in the earlier ones as well - I knew he lived there. Has anyone read or got a copy of his book. They are selling for over £100 on the web! Now that is a laugh!!

Book about Shelton Which book are you looking for?

Very pleased, picked up a copy of "Coventry, Echoes of the past", by Frank Roden, yesterday for £8 at Coleshill Antiques and Collectors Fair.

Covkidd. The first page of that book you can read on here, it says Churchill knew the raid was coming, we all knew the raid was coming, we had two in October so we fully expected another. Now all these books, to me, say much the same thing which is obvious and they are all aftermath of the raid and hearsay. Not one I have read tells you what Coventry felt before the raid. Now a few weeks ago somewhere on this forum we were told that a Coventry man wrote about his feelings to the Telegraph and the bombing before the raid - surely this is the real story, a guy's feelings of what he saw coming, same as most of us, not when it is all over. A BBC reporter said some unkind words about the state of the people, at the same time on the same page he showed an 11 year old girl bravely going to school the next morning - to me two complete contrasts. Can't decide whether to buy the book or not.

Hi all, As all serious Coventry history enthusiasts know, Benjamin Poole's 1869 History & Antiquities of Coventry is a must have. They come up on eBay every now and again, but usually for silly money - many hundreds of pounds. I was extremely lucky a couple of years ago to get a very early print, leather bound, with a "buy-it-now" of £85 - the seller obviously didn't realise its true value! Anyway, an 1870 copy has come onto eBay for £49.50 - and even has a "make offer" option! I hope one of our deserving members can get this..... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114152163775 Good luck!

Blimey.... 15 minutes later and it's gone! I really do hope it was one of you?

'Twas I. Thanks for the link, Rob, it certainly looks like a good read. I'm hoping to fill in an awful lot of gaps in my knowledge of my home city. The image of Butcher Row on the Ebay listing was the clincher as it coincides pretty well with the Nathaniel Troughton drawing I mentioned in a post earlier today.

That's great news, I'm so glad it went to one of "us"! It certainly is a great read - there are whole chapters dedicated to each of our ancient buildings, schools & institutions - year-by-year happenings - general history, and much, much more. Plus, of course, many super illustrations - many of which I've included in my image collection.