Old Cathedral and Church of St Michael

Sometimes I see things written about our history that make me unsure whether to laugh or cry! An old "friend" of ours has written something extremely controversial on another forum - 4th message from the bottom on this page of the Coventry Message Board. The message reads: Dutchman, right from before the war Coventry has been getting it's history wrong. The cathedral is not the building the Bottomlys built in the 14th century. After the dissolution and Coventry weather, the cathedral was falling apart, great stones were falling from the steeple, so in 1886 a silk ribbon designer called ADAMS got together formed a committee, raised funds, and restored it to its former glory. He was called upon to lay the first stone on its foundations. And two messages later, to confirm.... yes Coventry Cathedral was built from the foundations upwards in 1886 time and the book that proves it was in Cladstone's Library at Hawarden long before Coventry's Herald newspaper. You can google Hawarden if you wish to confirm, regards Kaga. On the next page comes a response in agreement.... According to british-history.ac.uk it was rebuilt between 1883 and 1889 so as you say was less than sixty-years old when it was finally destroyed. That page actually says: "The last major restoration was carried out between 1883 and 1890 under the direction of J. Oldrid Scott. This included the external re-facing with Runcorn stone of spire, tower, clerestories, and chancel, and the strengthening of the tower foundations." Now, I'm always willing to have my mind changed and learn something new, but I'm still convinced that our Old Cathedral was only heavily renovated in the 1880s, not completely rebuilt. One only has to walk around to ruins to confirm this - 14th to 16th century remains are everywhere you look, and most definitely do not appear to be "new" work! In fact, to think that the whole cathedral (still just a church at the time, of course) could possibly be taken down and rebuilt in a single decade, would surely stretch even the most vivid imagination!

It's easy to get confused and jamb different facts (and cathedrals) together to form one incorrect story. It does open up an interesting thought though - how much of a structure can be replaced before it's no longer the original structure? The interior obviously survives quite well (give or take a change of ornament) until, as with St Michael's and the Cook Street Gate, the roof is gone but then the clock starts ticking on the rest.

Having a quick browse round the internet and the newspaper I have come to the conclusion that no way would you call it "Built from the foundations up" Benjamin Poole mentions that interior was renovated in 1849. and yes much work was carried out in the 1880's but most of this was to the spire and making the building safe. There is a good description of the restoration in Abbeys and churches book, in the link I have attached, scroll down to page 87. I am sure we can still consider it the same building, we would not expect a building that old to be in its original condition. If you have your roof retiled and brickwork repaired you would still consider it the same house, so don't fret Rob ! Did find somewhere that it cost £44,000 Abbeys and Churches 1887

Not very clear, hope you can read it, The British Architect June 1885

That's wonderful, Anne, thank you - including that link you added above, which I've not read before. Fascinating!

Rob kindly scanned a lantern slide of the cathedral for me. The tower still hadn't been repaired and you can see how eroded the stonework was.

The formal opening of the restored nave and chancel took place on Wednesday 13th April 1887. It was attended by about 2,000 people. The finishing of the spire was going to take another few years. The ceremony for the laying of the cap stone on the spire took place in August 1888 !

Edited to get the location order of the organs correct. Thanks Philip, I never thought of that. While initially churches disapproved of instrumental music, the pipe organ was introduced amazingly early. The history of the pipe organ. By the time St Michael's resembled what we recognise from before the war, it would have had an organ of sorts. At its last refurbishment the organ was situated on the south wall, just to the right of the small doorway leading down the double sided steps onto Bayley Lane. From Rob's excellent collection - Before that the organ location was in the more prominent position at the west end, between the tower and the west entrance. One of the best pictures of the organ in there from Ben and Coventry Digital -

Most continental churches have west end organs with a smaller chancel organ for service music. It may be related to the change of the mechanism from tracker where the pipes are mechanically connected to the keys and pneumatic action where air pressure is carried by conduit pipes that lead from the keys to the speaking pipes. Tracker organs could only get bigger by growing vertically where there was room at the west end but pneumatic ones could be fitted into deep spaces. Without the choral tradition that returned after the restoration but was destroyed in Europe by revolution, the romantic version of the organ was used to highlight dramatic and contemplative moments in worship. Evensong's Walmisley in D minor and Noble in B flat requires a large organ to be near the choir. The plainchant of the Catholic offices only needs a small organ near the choir. I think it is somewhere in Thomas Hardy's "Under the Greenwood Tree"" where he bemoans the replacement of the village orchestra by the organ and the loss of traditional musical skills to the professional organist. I will need to investigate the history of St Michael's choir and see if it fits with my hypothesis. Did it have a choir when the organ was at the west end? It was a remarkable feat to create a choir to restart cathedral music in 1962.

There is 'choir' marked on the plan just in front of the west end organ but none specifically marked when it was on the south.

Actually, I may have got the oldest organ location the wrong way round. The plans of the layout aren't dated but the Sacristy changed. I will investigate further.

They would probably only mark "choir" specifically if the reserved space was different to the "Choir", normally east of the choir screen.

I can find reports in the newspapers of a choir in St Michaels from about the 1820's

Hi Helen, Hi all, The position of the organ is told by the evidence from the blitz. The reason for the total destruction in the area of the organs location, is because the pipes accelerated the inferno by increasing the air supply to the blaze, behaving like chimneys.

Fortunately this did not happen at Notre Dame.