Summary

The Cathedral of St. Mary was endowed in 1043 by Leofric and Godiva as part of the Benedictine Priory. Various excavations have taken place since the 1850s, the most recent being 1999-2003, but have not found definitive remains of the late Saxon minster church. It probably lay within the footprint of the later building, and may share some foundations, but may equally have been largely subsumed by the later remodelling that took place from the 12th century onwards. The building of the medieval cathedral began at the east end in the early 12th century but was halted in about 1143, at which point documentary and archaeological evidence suggests it was fortified Robert Marmion to make it into a seige castle (see MCT2048). The west end of the cathedral was built in the period after 1150 and stylistically has been dated to the second quarter of the 13th century.

Monument Type(s):

• BUILDING (11th Century to Later Medieval - 1043 AD to 1539 AD)
• CATHEDRAL (11th Century to Later Medieval - 1043 AD to 1539 AD)

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument COVSAM7: Priory Ruins
• Listed Building (I) 218543: PRIORY RUINS
• Conservation Area: Hill Top Conservation Area

Full description

1> Entrance into the nave was via the great west door, of which one 'jamb' survives at its lowest levels. It is marked by a cluster of nook-shaft bases. The shafts which stood on these bases were free-standing separate columns, probably of local stone…A secondary doorway into the N aisle was for access to the many chapels which would have been established along the aisles for obituary purposes and would probably have been for monks and lay brethren only…Immediately next to the pier which divides Nave from N aisle lay a patch of 18 floor tiles in situ which probably survive due to the close proximity of the pier…the opportunity was given to establish whether the 13th century Cathedral Church shared a common foundation at the west end with its Saxo-Norman predeccessor. The excavation has shown that in all probability it does not. It is suspected that this antecedent , the Church of Godiva and Leofric, does indeed lie somewhere within the line of the 13th century church, either enveloped completely by the latter …or sharing one or more walls/foundations at at Haughmond Abbey (Salop). The most likely position for the earlier church is in the Quire of the later example lying under the 18th century buildings to the east of Priory Row.

2,3> Exposed foundations on sunk plot of ground; converted into garden and immediately
adjacent to houses above. Only base of W front of Cathedral monastery of St
Mary, f1043, remains. Lower portions of clustered shafts and pier responds.

4> For almost 600 years, this hilltop site was the most important element of early settlement and later town of Coventry. At its zenith, medieval Benedictine Cathedral and Priory covered 13 acres (5.3 ha) of hill. Excavations 1967: site had been levelled by medieval buildings and hillside terraced to accommodate Cathedral church, removing any archaeological evidence of pre-conquest buildings within areas examined. Most substantial remains of church so far uncovered lie at W end. 1856, base of W wall excavated and left exposed and part of its N tower now incorporated into Blue Coat School. 1955, when new Cathedral was being erected, part of E end revealed: 2 halves of 2 polygonal apses with 2 projecting butresses. Excavations established total length of church 129.5m. Large cruciform Cathedral with central tower, shallow trancepts and polygonal E end. [Source currently unknown AW].

5> Comprehensive excavation report on excavation of most of the west end of the Cathedral Church with plans, profiles, illustrations and finds.

6> Mention in WMANS.

7> Brick wash house building part of Blue Coat School demolished: stood on part of stone walls of the Church and also a large heap of rubble from the destruction of the church 10-12 feet deep, containing many carved stones of 13th century…graves. In one place near to which were found a number of burials, was an older wall, which may have been part of the Abbey/Minster of Godiva's time. Other walls built on a quarry.

8> Wessex evaluation Trench 1 uncovered 2 pier bases (100 and 122) in north aisle arcade of the Cathedral Church. [Note that the trench is digitised on current OS whilst cathedral is on 1888 1:50 so the two do not coincide].

9> Evaluation trench examined section of the north nave wall 0.8m high and buried between 2.3 and 3.1m depth; also dissolution rubble.

10> Excavation of north-east pier in 1959-60 by Mrs. R. Helmsley: ECT272 location does coicide closely with a nave pier, but no other details are known.

11> Excavation revealed three walls, part of the former tower which forms the Blue Coat School building including two blocked doorways. [Source not known AW].

12> Several walls were excavated during an evaluation. The walls were of sandstone and one of them was probably the northern wall of the Cathedral Forecourt. Another wall may have been part of the north tower of the Priory, dating to the 13th century. Several sherds of pottery were also found, including Staffordshire Slipware and Cistercian Ware and Nuneaton Ware.

13> Repair work to the listed building [7 Priory Row] involved the temporary removal of the floor in a rear ground-floor room. This room coincided with the assumed position of the priory's eighth pier in the nave south arcade (pier S8), and an opportunity was presented to locate this pier by excavation…Based on the locations of the surrounding piers, as discovered during the Phoenix Initiative excavations of 1999-2000, a test pit was opened in September 2004 and was positioned to locate pier S8. Demolition deposits from the cathedral consisting of densley packed pink-orange coloured mortar and sandstone were found 0.5m below ground level, with the top of the pier located a further 0.4m deeper. The trench coincided with the south-east quadrant of the pier, which had been built with an ashlar facing and a rubble and mortar core. Attached to the eastern side of the pier was part of a drum, that probably originally stretched across the whole of the eastern side; a half-round shaft was centred on its southern side. The drum would have supported the arch that connected eastwards with the larger south-west pier of the central crossing. Although it was only possible to dig 0.4m down the southern side of the pier, this was enough to show that the stone still retained traces of limewash that had covered the cathedral's interior…Directly attached to the drum of pier S8 was a masonry structure running eastwards, which may have been part of the screen that separated the aisle from the choir; none of the facing stonework had survived and only the rubble and mortar core work remained.

14> The Construction of the East End and Crossing (c.1102-1140): Investigation of the cathedral east of the nave was restricted to an area encompassing part of the northern crossing and parts of the north transept. Four piers were found in situ in this area…Together these enable the position of the crossing and transepts to be fixed for the first time, a significant development in the study of the cathedral…It is almost certain that the unexcavated eastern arm of the cathedral was constructed first and dates from this early period (the chevet chapels discovered in 1955 being late Gothic additions to the east end). It would appear that the siege of 1143 interrupted the early building programme some time after the completion of pier 8 of the north aisle…The radiocarbon-dated remains below pier 6 indicate that it was probably built some time after c.1160, therefore post-dating the siege. This westward progression of pier building in the north aisle may be of significance when considering the nature of the early stone feature found below the nave. Its location corresponds to the limit of construction at the time of the seige and thus it remains plausible that it represents some attempt to fortify the partially built cathedral [see MCT2048]… The Western Half of the Cathedral Church of St. Mary (c.1150-1539): The Cathedral Church of St. Mary was c.130m (425ft) long when complete. Evidence from the pre-cathedral features indicates that the majority of the original western half, comprising the nave (59m/193ft long) and its flanking aisles (4m/13ft wide), could not have been constructed until the second half of the twelfth century. Existing scholarship is agreed that the west front has all the architectural hallmarks of a structure dating to the second quarter of the thirteenth century. Therefore a construction programme of perhaps three to four generations is plausible, exhibiting a change in architectural style from the Romanesque to Early English Gothic…The central crossing supported a tower and possibly a spire, while smaller towers adorned the ends of the west front. Archaeological evidence for the form of all three is scant, but for a rather naïve drawing of 1576…[see full report for details of architecture, entrance, floor layout etc].

15> Photographs of excavation of the cathedral nave, including the piers and areas of floor tiles.

16> In 1611 a lease of the former nave was granted to Henry Sewell, the document confirming that at least two central crossing piers were still standing at this time, and Speed's map also shows a pile of rubble at this location…The Grascombe family of butchers took over the Sewell lease of the nave, which was then apparently used by the to 'keep hogs in'. Eventually the north-west tower itself was put to a new use: in 1644 the lease was sold to the Revd John Bryan, vicar of Holy Trinity, and in the next few years he transformed the area, 'making dwelling houses on the bottom of the two steeples [the west end towers]' and cleared the ground of ruins creating a garden. He converted the north-west tower into his own home, calling it 'Tower House', and the south-west tower into a gatehouse.

17> The construction of the new cathedral in 1955 exposed three related buttresses in a position known to be near the E end of the Benedictine priory church. This was measured in 1960 and a tentative plan drawn up by P. Woodfield, Fig 80. The width, the orientation of the nave and aisles and the existence of a central tower in this priory church were already known. The newly-exposed masonry suggests that the E end was an ambulatory with five chevet chapels, but this can only be proved by further excavation, and it provides certain problems. First, the buttresses do not fall exactly with this scheme, but require a one degree inclination of the axis towards the S. Secondly, an internal face, exposed for a short length, does not correspond to an internal angle of a chevet chapel. There may, however, have been intervening spaces, probably inter-connected, between the ambulatory and the chapels. Thirdly, it is hard to explain the 2-ft foundation-course which, coeval with the buttresses, extends westward across the chapel. It could possibly be a foundation for a raised floor. An inclination of the axis is a common feature and provdes no real difficulty. No parallel is immediately available for the space before the chapels but it is constructionally possible and not altogether inconsistent with buildings of this type. Not dating material accompanied the discovery, but the masonry looks to be late 13th to 15th century in character. The chevet plan is known in England chiefly in Cistercian buildings, but examples of Benedictine five-chevet plans occur at Westminster, 1245-60, and Tewkesbury, late 13th century.

18> September and October 1997 - limited excavation by Wessex Archaeology within church centre gardens confirmed depth of survival of St. Mary's Cathedral/Benedictine Priory Church. Hand dug trench 10m x 2m identified 2 in situ pier-bases of north arcade of nave surviving below 3m of post-medieval deposits. The piers and floor had been robbed away. Excavation undertaken in advance of possible redevelopment of area within 'Phoenix Initiative'. The excavation also encountered 18th and 19th century burials from the former Holy Trinity burial ground on this site, including one brick-built burial vault.
19> Coventry Cathedral with the support of the World Monuments Fund Britain has commissioned a series of reports into key aspects of the operation of the Cathedral as a visitor attraction, and the operation of the wider Cathedrals Quarter. The Cathedrals Quarter includes St Mary’s Priory Ruins.

<1> Coventry Museums Archaeology Unit, 1990, Excavations at St. Mary's Benedictine Priory, Coventry 1989-1990 (--EXCAVATION REPORT). SCT1384.

<2> DoE, 1974, SP3379SW 4/62 (-INDEX). SCT549.

<3> DoE, 1971, Schedule of Ancient Monuments (--MONOGRAPH). SCT695.

<5> Northamptonshire Archaeology, 2000, Excavations at the Cathedral Church of St. Mary, Coventry 1999-2000 Summary Report (--EXCAVATION REPORT). SCT1386.

<6> Rylatt M; Soden I, 1987, Coventry, Benedictine Priory of St Mary (--ARTICLE). SCT552.

<7> Austin's Monthly Magazine of Instructive and Useful Information, 1932-1939, Extracts from "Austin's Monthly Magazine" of articles written by Mr J.B. Shelton 1932 - 1938, Vol. XXXI No.373 (--ARTICLE). SCT1615.

<8> Wessex Archaeology, 1997, Holy Trinity Church Centre, Coventry: Archaeological Excavation. Preliminary Report., p.4-5 (--EXCAVATION REPORT). SCT1401.

<8> Wessex Archaeology, 1999, Holy Trinity Church Centre, Coventry: Archaeological Evaluation. Final Report., p.4-5 (--EVALUATION REPORT). SCT2203.

<9> Coventry Museums Archaeology Unit, 1998, An Archaeological Investigation of the North Nave Wall of St. Mary's Cathedral Church, Coventry (--EVALUATION REPORT). SCT1330.

<10> 1960, Mrs Rosemary Hemsley's Excavation of the NE pier. (TEXT). SCT1406.

<12> Coventry Museum Archaeology Unit, 1999, Excavation of Ground Room GR5, Blue Coat School, Priory Row, Coventry (--EXCAVATION REPORT). SCT1606.

<13> Monckton, L. and Morris, R.K (eds), 2011, Coventry: Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology in the City and its Vicinity, p.28-30 (-PUBLICATION). SCT1980.

<14> Coventry City Council, 2003, The Archaeology of the Medieval Cathedral and Priory of St Mary, Coventry, p. 15-20 (--MONOGRAPH). SCT1279.

<15> Demidowicz G, 1999-2002, Phoenix Initiative Photographic Record of Excavations (-PHOTOGRAPH). SCT1419.

<17> Medieval Archaeology, 1961, Medieval Archaeology Volume 5: Medieval Britain in 1960, Vol 5; p313-314 (--ARTICLE). SCT1973.

<18> Flitcoft M, 1997, West Midlands Sites and Monuments Record Sheet (-INDEX). SCT2086.

<19> Jura Consultants, 2013, Coventry Cathedral Strategic Development Plan, Coventry Cathedrals Quarter (-REPORT). SCT2100.

Sources and Further Reading

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• ECT107 - Holy Trinity Church Centre, Coventry (Ref: COVE36)
• ECT114 - St. Mary's Cathedral Church; North Nave Wall (Ref: COVE43)
• ECT115 - Excavation of Cathedral Church of St. Mary, Coventry (Ref: COVE44)
• ECT208 - Test pit at 7 Priory Row (Ref: COVE140)
• ECT272 - 8 Priory Row (Ref: COVE207)
• ECT405 - Observations of Priory Tower and Wall, Trinity Street 1935
• ECT66 - Excavation at the West End of Cathedral of St Mary 1989
• ECT676 - Observation and survey of medieval cathedral buttresses (E end) 1960
• ECT360 - Phoenix Initiative Phase 1 Desk Based Assessment 1997
• ECT704 - Coventry Cathedral Strategic Development Plan, Coventry Cathedrals Quarter
• ECT720 - Phoenix Initiative Phase 1 Desk Based Assessment 1997

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