Coventry Society Newsletter - August 2018

We are back in the Old Grammar School for Heritage Open Days with Coventry Family History Society and others on Saturday and Sunday, September 15-16.

12noon to 4pm each day.

To make the event a success we need a team of volunteers. The duties will be onerous!

Please contact the chairman with offers of help— an hour or two will really help.

After five years of negotiation, the Historic Coventry Trust recently announced the exchange of legal contracts to acquire the freehold of the abandoned rail Loop Line linking the Charterhouse Heritage Park to Gosford Green. The route through a wildlife corridor forms part of wider proposals for a 70-acre green space that includes the Charterhouse and London Road cemetery.

It’s a key part of a grand plan for a two mile circular walk along the River Sherbourne and through woodland and wetland areas – a country walk in the city centre.

The Trust is working closely on the plans with the Council and wildlife partners, The Woodland Trust and Warwickshire Wildlife, with members pictured above on the loop line in July.

The walk will link two historic city sites associated with Richard II – The Charterhouse and Gosford Green, which was the site of the biggest medieval event in the country, the so-called ‘Duel That Never Was’ between Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, and Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV. Richard II banished them both – a decision that lead to the Wars of the Roses and lost him the crown.

The Trust now needs to raise funds for the acquisition cost of £150,000 – and is appealing for donations.

Rail enthusiasts will be interested in the photo left taken in 1963 by Mr.M.Mensing . It shows ex-LMS 4-6-0 No 44771 passing Humber Road junction with an up freight train. For the record the 1.2km former railway line saw its last trains in 1981.

Our August meeting on Monday, the 13th will be a walking tour of Birmingham’s Victorian centre. Meeting point is Chamberlain Square in front of the Council House at 6.30pm. Those wishing to see St Philip’s Cathedral in advance of the main meeting will need to get to the building before the it closes. Meet at the Cathedral at 5.55pm.

As usual free for members, £2 for visitors.

Colmore Row and its environs were designated a conservation area in 1971 and was extended twice in 1985. Colmore Row itself has 23 listed buildings, two listed at Grade I and two at Grade II*.

The Cathedral dedicated to St Philip was built in the early 18th century in the Baroque style by Thomas Archer and is located on Colmore Row. It is Grade I listed and is the third smallest cathedral in England after Derby and Chelmsford.

August 2018

You are invited to arrive in advance of the September monthly meeting at the Shop Front Theatre to formally minute and record changes to the constitution for the Charities Commission.

Your committee will also present an Award of Honorary Life Membership to retired architect Ralph Butcher who worked with Coventry Society from its early days.

During the month of June, an outreach project to involve students in looking at the history of Coventry, saw Ash Green School win £200 for school and pizza for friends and family of the winning student.

Organised by Historic Coventry Trust partnered with PET-Xi Training Ltd., the project reached schools across Coventry and its surrounding areas.

Students were encouraged to look at the history of the city and see who could create the best tag line.

An appeal to help raise £80,000 to fund the building of a pavilion in the walled garden at Allesley Park has been launched by the Allesley Park Walled Garden Group. It will serve as a centre to interpret the heritage site, and the wider area. It will also provide an indoor—outdoor area where training in horticulture will take place.

Currently the park has no protection from the elements and visiting groups have sometimes been soaked to the skin as the heavens opened. Anyone able to help should contact its chairman Keith Draper on 024 7640 2030 or dandelion@ntlworld.com

More news and views on our website: www.coventrysociety.org.uk

Pictured top: Alison when the garden was under construction.

Pictures below: the completed garden with the canal basin toilet block adjacent.

As Coventry City of Culture moves up a gear, organisers have produced a poster for display around the city.

After creating and maintaining the lovely garden near to the bridge at Coventry’s Canal Basin, Alison has retired. But thankfully she has agreed to continue regularly visiting the garden to pick up the many cans, bottles and other rubbish that is regularly dropped there.

This is the result of new health and safety regulations that prevent volunteer work to be carried out on the garden.

The Canal Basin Trust has been assured that the Council through its Property Management will continue the excellent work that Alison has achieved in the past.

Alan Dyer who manages the warehouses in the Coventry Canal Basin, said: “The garden is a valuable feature of the canal basin and, apart from its abundant birdlife, it is regularly visited by the public and boaters who come to the basin. Maybe its function is primarily aesthetic but considering recent concerns about bringing more visitors to the basin the trustees believe it’s upkeep is very important.

“I have had amicable and sympathetic meetings with Property Management – who have assured the trust that the garden will continue to be maintained to the standards of the past.”

A plan to demolish and replace a modest Victorian building with a modern block of little or no architectural value is clearly a controversial one.

The conundrum arises with a recent planning application to demolish the Ristorante Etna in Hertford Street. Details of the planning application are available on the planning portal FUL/2018/1289.

The building appears to have lost an upper storey perhaps in the last war so what is left is something of a mish-mash; the rear facing the Methodist Hll is unsightly and really needs attention.

However the building planned has no architectural merit and appears to be a poor fit with neighbouring properties Like most recent developments in Coventry the new use will mainly be student housing.

However the developers know that this is a shopping street and to ensure that they get planning permission they have included a small shop unit downstairs facing Hertford Street. However the shop unit is tiny and is unlikely to attract a retailer, particularly as it can’t be serviced from the rear because of the flats.

Etna restaurant will be very familiar to many Coventry people and will hold a small warm place in their hearts. It’s part of Coventry’s collective history. Is this important enough to argue for its retention?

I see in the press that Chester Cathedral has recently completed a programme of Mystery Plays. They are performed every five years.

This prompts me to suggest it’s time we re-introduced the Mysteries in Coventry.

Our Cathedral used to have its own series of Mystery Plays, that were performed every three years up until 2006.

The Plays date back to early medieval times when trade guilds would perform them on mobile stages around the city. The plays were mostly taken from scenes from the Bible.

Unfortunately few records of the plays now exist but the Shearmen Guild and Tailors' Guild plays were transcribed and published by Thomas Sharp and most recent performances are loosely based on these plays, from Adam and Eve to Noah's Ark, the Annunciation, Nativity, Massacre of the Innocents and Crucifixion. They often came to be a bit political and would parody local dignitaries and like pantomime they would add local issues and gossip.

Taken from our website where you can find the full story by Paul Maddocks

Contacts Postal address: 77 Craven Street, Coventry CV5 8DT Chairman’s tel: 07814327614 Email: info @coventrysociety.org.uk If Twitter is your thing, you can follow us at https://twitter.com/#!/CovSoc We also have our own page on Facebook.

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