Coventry Cathedral, medieval priory ruins

A rural walk through beautiful countryside makes a fine one-day pilgrimage route to Coventry Cathedral, starting at Fillongley church 10 miles to the north-west

Highlights

• Modern and bombed cathedrals
• Former shrine of St Osburga
• Saxon monastery founded by Lady Godiva

There have been three great cathedrals in Coventry. The first was destroyed by Henry VIII and the second by Hitler. The third cathedral was built next to the bombed-out ruin of its predecessor, which has been left as a memorial.

Reconciliation is the modern focus of Coventry’s religious experience. If you know where to look, there is also an older tale that can be followed at the city’s holy places, based around two powerful Saxon women, St Osburga and Lady Godiva.

Coventry’s religious history begins with the nunnery where St Osburga was abbess. She died around 1018, perhaps in a Danish raid that destroyed her community. St Osburga is one of the most obscure Saxon saints, but by lucky chance her shrine has a link to all three of the city’s cathedrals.

St Osburga’s memory is now entirely eclipsed by another Saxon hero of Coventry, Lady Godiva, who paid for the re-establishment of a monastery here in 1043. Thanks to these two women, Coventry grew into a cathedral city.

The timeline of Coventry’s cathedrals is a little confusing: cathedral status came and went in the city, including a gap of nearly 400 years after the Reformation. But to summarise: first came St Mary’s Priory (founded 1043, cathedral from around 1100 to 1539). The second was the ruined St Michael’s Cathedral (built 1300, cathedral from 1918 to 1940). And the third is the current Coventry Cathedral (consecrated in 1962).

The three cathedral sites are in the city centre. The two cathedrals of St Michael are next to each other, forming a single complex. The original medieval priory cathedral is a two-minute walk away, with a small museum alongside.

Coventry Cathedral

The modern cathedral at Coventry is overpowering – and not merely because it adjoins the ruins of its bombed-out predecessor. The first devotional object you encounter is a cross made from two charred beams, the words ‘Father forgive’ underneath. As the rest of the cathedral complex eloquently explains, there is much that needs to be forgiven.

It is a message that runs throughout the building in its architecture, its dedications and its many works of art and design. The cross behind the high altar is composed of medieval nails recovered from the ruins of the previous cathedral, a symbol used in promoting reconciliation. The cathedral has made over 160 similar crosses, which are displayed in churches around the world – most significantly in Dresden and Berlin. The cathedral set up a Community of the Cross of Nails, which continues to work in some of the most troubled and war-torn parts of the world.

The cross of nails is powerful despite being so small, but the rest of Coventry’s new cathedral is on a grand scale. A huge tapestry of Christ by the artist Graham Sutherland occupies the entire wall behind the high altar. At the other end of the church is a stained-glass window that stretches from floor to ceiling, at the base of which stands a font made out of a boulder brought from Bethlehem.

The city’s principal saint is however absent from the main body of the cathedral. A little display area, by the entrance, contains a small stone sculpture of a nun believed to be St Osburga. The symbolic importance of this little effigy seemed to be overlooked by the cathedral, though she could in her own way be held up as a figure of reconciliation and unity. St Osburga dates from the early church, a time when there were no substantial divisions between the Christian churches.

Small though the sculpture is, it was found in the wreckage of the bombed-out cathedral by a policeman. Parts of St Osburga’s shrine had presumably been moved there after St Mary’s Cathedral was closed by Henry VIII. The policeman put it in his pocket and took it home. Later, when he was close to death in hospital, he confessed and sent the sculpture back to the cathedral. A miraculous recovery soon followed, and the cathedral regained the city’s founding saint.

St Osburga is therefore linked to all three of the city’s cathedrals, a unifying figure across time as well as across Christian denominations. The modern cathedral has a Chapel of Unity, which would be a spiritually resonant place to preserve this saint’s memory.

An icon called the Stalingrad Madonna is also displayed in the museum, a gift donated by the people of the Russian city, which was also bombed to rubble by the Nazis. Copies are displayed in Berlin and Stalingrad, which has reverted to its original name of Volgograd.

Old Cathedral

The bombed-out ruin of the city’s medieval cathedral is Britain’s largest war monument. The church was built around 1300, and converted to cathedral status in 1918. As shell-shocked citizens picked their way through the smoking ruins on 14 November 1940, a plan began to form that this ruin would be left as a permanent memorial.

In a radio broadcast from these ruins on Christmas day 1940, the cathedral’s provost declared a wish to work with the German people after the war. The ruins now function as a paved city-centre garden, with religious works of art on display and panels recording its history and interpreting its significance. A party of school children was being guided round the site when I visited, an easy place to bring history to life. The ruins are still used for church services, including the Easter morning liturgy.

This building has the third-tallest spire in England, soaring 90m high. It somehow survived the incendiary bombs that tore the heart out of the building below it. Enough remains of the building to suggest it could have been rebuilt. Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff was reduced to a similar state during the second world war, but was extensively restored. The ministers at Coventry believed it would be more eloquent as a ruin, and have been true to their mission of reconciliation ever since.

Priory and Cathedral of St Mary

Only the foundations of Coventry’s original cathedral survive. They have been turned into a neatly tended park, with a footbridge over the middle. A statue of Our Lady of Coventry was erected at one end, funded by the Catholic community as a gift to the city. It is a reminder that this building was an important holy site, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.

The decision to found an important monastery in Coventry was down to the ever-persuasive Lady Godiva according to Roger of Wendover, a historian who died in 1236. Her husband Earl Leofric agreed to her request, perhaps worried that his wife would resort to one of her spontaneous acts of protest if he refused. The building was dedicated to St Mary, St Osburga and All Saints at its consecration in 1043.

This foundation was entirely replaced by a huge monastic cathedral in the 13th century. The visible ruins today cover only a small part of the western end of this building, which stretched almost as far as the modern cathedral. There is no trace left of the Saxon monastery founded by Lady Godiva. Nor is there anything remaining of the even earlier Saxon nunnery where St Osburga served.

St Osburga’s shrine was kept here until the Reformation. The building was both a cathedral and a monastery, which is why Henry VIII decided to close it entirely. The city of Coventry was left without cathedral status for nearly 400 years.The priory ruins were extensively excavated in 1999, and some of the artefacts displayed in a museum alongside, the Priory Visitor Centre. This was closed at the time of writing due to funding problems. Chief among its finds is an astonishingly delicate fragment of wall painting, depicting a scene from the Apocalypse, painted around 1360 by a highly skilled artist. I had seen a picture of it and searched the museum in vain for a large wall panel. It is in fact a tiny but highly detailed miniature, kept in a dark cabinet. A light switch illuminated this glimpse of heaven.

Lady Godiva

A short distance from the priory ruins is a statue of Lady Godiva, balancing on her horse. She is wearing a determined expression and nothing else, a memorial of the time she rode naked through Coventry as a protest against her husband’s unfair taxation policies.

It is extraordinary to think that a Saxon woman had the independence to attempt such an act of defiance against her own husband, Earl Leofric. In addition to Coventry, some of the finest Saxon churches were funded by this couple, no doubt at Lady Godiva’s instigation, including Much Wenlock, Worcester, Evesham, Chester, Leominster and Stow in Lincolnshire. Such church building activity in the 11th century is comparable only to St Margaret of Scotland.

She outlived her exasperated husband by at least 10 years, and died some time after the Norman Conquest. I sometimes wonder if the Saxons, left to their own devices, would have recognised her as a saint.

Directions

St Michael’s Cathedral, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB

www.coventrycathedral.org.uk

http://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk

W3W: half.scared.frog

GPS: 52.4081N 1.5072W

Priory Visitor Centre, Priory Arts and Heritage, Priory Row, Coventry CV1 5EX

www.coventrypriory.co.uk