Coventry

I had a little break from blogging, not intentional though. I had a cold, still struggling with it, so I wasn’t in the right mood for blogging. Last week I’ve been to Coventry and I have loads of pictures to share. I also visited the Transport Museum, but I will blog about that in a different post these days.
Now that I’m getting back to blogging, I have a few exciting things I want to blog about and a couple of very exciting new projects.

My husband and I went to Spon Street and, as mentioned, to the Coventry Transport Museum. There are plenty more things to see in Coventry, like the art gallery and the cathedral, among other things. We’ll have to visit the city again in the future, to see everything.

Spon Street is pretty much in the centre. The old half-timbered 14th century buildings were restored and now they are shops, pubs and restaurants. Spon Street first appeared in documents in the 12th century. Spon Gate was one of the 12th that were protecting the city, built in the 14th century and demolished almost 400 years later.

On this street there were traders from the 12th century until the 19th century. There were a lot of trades on this street: fuller, weaver, cordwainer, saddler, plumber, smothi, carpenter, cloth dresser, woader, salter, cobber, fletcher, dyer, tanner, whittawer, watchmaker, apothecary and physician. In the 18th century Coventry was booming due to its ribbon manufacturing. With the industrial revolution, factories appeared and they replaced the ribbon makers. As they didn’t have money, the shopkeepers started to lose money too. It was a bleak period with starvation and soup kitchens for poor families.

The buildings we see today were rebuilt 40-50 years ago with the original materials. Some of the houses have boards on them with details about the initial look of the house and when it was rebuilt.

One of the pubs on Spon Street, that I want to visit, it’s Old Windmill. It was closed when we visited the city, so I’ll keep it in mind for next time. The Old Windmill is in a 15th century white building and it’s the oldest pub in Coventry, dating back to 1451.

The Old Grammar School, former chapel from the 1340s. After the Dissolution was converted into the grammar school. The building is now a scheduled monument.

Have you been to Coventry?