2.1.4 The Ruined City and the Site

UNDERSTANDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLACE

2.1.4 THE RUINED CITY AND THE SITE Interwar Coventry “In the first four decades of the 20th century, Coventry was the fastest growing city in Britain”06

After two centuries in the doldrums, Coventry’s economic prospects began to rise with the manufacture of clocks and watches and silk ribbons in the 18th and early 19th century. As these declined with foreign competition, workers transferred their skills to the new sewing machine and cycle industries. The mechanisation of wheeled vehicles by means of the internal combustion engine proved to be a boon to Coventry, with the production of the first car by Daimler in 1896. By the interwar period the city had become one of the country’s leading centres of motor vehicle manufacture (both cars and bikes) allied with the production of machine tools.

Many of the factories and workshops had been constructed in the historic core of the city, which had retained its medieval street pattern. Despite these new developments, on the eve of the First World War the city remained one of the best preserved historic cities in the country. It contained many medieval and post-medieval timber-framed buildings, a great number of which were hidden behind 18th and 19th-century brick façades. This was an urban environment unfit to serve a rapidly growing 20th century city and before the Second World War the decision was made to modernise the ancient centre. The alternative of setting aside this area and building a new and modern city centre, as on the continent, was not considered. In 1937, an important part of the historic town was demolished to make way for Trinity Street. Further piecemeal re-planning was overtaken by the outbreak of the war in 1939.

Photo of St Michael’s early 1900s Donald Gibson and the Coventry of Tomorrow 1938–1955 In late 1938, Donald Gibson, a young man of 29, was appointed as the new city architect and plans for a new civic centre, library, museum, police and law courts were presented in May 1940 by means of an exhibition entitled: ‘Coventry for Tomorrow’. They required the demolition of many of the historic buildings around the Cathedral and guildhall. Gibson’s ideas were more radical than those proposed by his colleague, the city engineer, Ernest Ford, and it was not long before they prevailed. The bombing of the city in November 1940 during the Blitz allowed Gibson to think more boldly. Plans were produced in March 1941 for the comprehensive redevelopment of the badly damaged commercial area west of Broadgate with pedestrian-only shopping precincts – all in the spirit of what he considered humane, rational and controlled. When the plans were implemented from the late 1940s, Coventry was quickly perceived as the vanguard of new urban planning and design. The buildings of the Upper Precinct are now regarded as historic and worthy of preservation, having been recently statutorily listed (2018).

Publication reference: for a fuller assessment of Gibson’s schemes – see Jeremy and Caroline Gould: Coventry – Making of a Modern City 1939-73, (2016); Louise Campbell, ‘Paper dream city/modern monument: Donald Gibson, Coventry’, in Iain Boyde Whyte (ed), Man-made future: planning, education and design in mid-twentieth Britain, (2007), pp.121-144.

06 Jeremy and Caroline Gould, HE 2016 P1, Coventry – The Making of a Modern City, 1939-73,

UNDERSTANDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLACE

The Bombing of the City and the Cathedral Air raids on Coventry began in the summer of 1940 and targeted its strategically important industries, many of which had moved over to war production. Many factories and workshops remained intermixed with historic buildings in a still compact city centre. In the circumstances it was inevitable that the historic town would be badly hit. The air raids culminated in the devastating Blitz on the night of 14 November 1940. Over 500 German bombers dropped incendiaries and high explosives that laid waste to the city centre and at least 568 people were killed. St Michael’s cathedral was destroyed by fire rather than high explosives. Incendiaries landed on the roof, the timbers and lead of which were soon ablaze and out of reach of the small group of cathedral firefighters keeping watch. As the fire spread below to the timber pews and screens, Provost Howard managed to rescue only a small number of treasures and his description of these tragic events is still shocking and heart wrenching:

Rubble filled ruins of St Michael, 1940 At one point, I clearly saw the pillar by the bishop’s throne, and noticed that it seemed to have shrunk at the bottom in the intense heat of the burning screen. As far as I could make out, the falling of the pillars of the main Nave arcade and clerestory walls was not due to high explosive but to the falling of the roofs and the consequent dissolution of the stresses on the slender and now weakened pillars by which the heavy masonry above was supported. The steel girders, which had been encased within the principal beams across the Nave, were twisted with the terrific heat, and must undoubtedly have helped to bring the walls down. The whole interior was a seething mass of flame and piledup blazing beams and timbers, interpenetrated and surmounted by bronze coloured smoke.

The impact on the city was devastating. As dawn broke over a ruined city, a horrific scene of destruction greeted Coventrians. Homes and factories were flattened and many buildings were consumed by flames so intense, the city’s sandstone brickwork glowed red. The Ruins The cathedral was destroyed and in the days following the raid, a series of important and poignant events helped define the future for the site. In Spring 1948, the ruins rubble was finally cleared and at this time, Provost Howard caused the words of the Hallowing Places to be written on plaques placed on the walls of the Cathedral ruins, and he caused the words “Father Forgive” to be carved around the altar of reconciliation.07

In the aftermath of the Blitz, the ruins, cleared of debris, were the focus for a number of ceremonial activities and services. The War Artists Advisory Committee featured them in a number of works and the Ministry of Information used them in a number of propaganda films. Through these activities, which in themselves were part of the response to the shockwave created by an event that had no precedent in Britain, the ruins quickly acquired immense significance as Louise Campbell notes - “locally, nationally and internationally”. Throughout the 1940s, the ruins acquired great importance, standing symbolically for the devastation and loss suffered by the city.08

07 It is important to note that there has been a significant amount of myth-making about the carving of the words ‘Father Forgive’, to the rear of the altar in the ruins. The romantic vision of Provost Howard writing these words on the wall, in the days following the bombing and fire has potency and power as a story, but it is not exactly as it happened. 08 There are numerous books about the Coventry Blitz. One notable account is by Frederick Taylor - Coventry:Thursday 14th November 1940. This book is a companion volume to Dresden: Tuesday 13th February 1945. (See bibliography for full details)