City in West Midlands, England
Coventry
Coventry gave the world the jet engine, the safety bicycle and a naked horse rider. It also gave Britain the phrase 'sent to Coventry'.
Key information
- County
- West Midlands
- Nation
- England
- Population
- About 345,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- Lady Godiva, the bombed cathedral ruins, car and bicycle making, the jet engine, 2 Tone music
- What locals are called
- Coventrians
- Famous people
- Frank Whittle, Philip Larkin, Delia Derbyshire, Terry Hall
- Football clubs
- Coventry City (the Sky Blues)
About Coventry
The naked rider and the man who peeped
Coventry's most famous resident never needed a stitch of clothing. According to the legend, Lady Godiva, wife of the Earl Leofric in the 11th century, rode naked through the streets to make her husband cut the town's heavy taxes. The townsfolk stayed indoors with their shutters closed. All except one. Peeping Tom, a tailor, took a look and (so the story goes) was struck blind. He only entered the tale centuries later, but he became part of it for good, and his gawping head still peers from a building near the city centre. Godiva rides on in Broadgate, where a bronze statue unveiled in 1949 stands in the heart of the city. She has also been celebrated in processions and festivals, and a small army of Coventry businesses have borrowed her name.
The night the cathedral burned
On the night of 14 November 1940, German bombers hit Coventry in one of the most destructive raids on a British city in the Second World War. The medieval cathedral of St Michael was gutted, leaving only its walls and tower, and the city centre was devastated. The Germans even coined a verb for it, 'coventrieren'. The response was remarkable. Instead of clearing the ruins, Coventry kept them. Two charred beams that fell in the shape of a cross were set up on the altar of the ruined church, and the words 'Father Forgive' were inscribed on the wall. Nails from the roof timbers became the Cross of Nails, now a symbol of reconciliation sent around the world. Beside the ruins stands Basil Spence's new cathedral, consecrated in 1962. It holds Graham Sutherland's giant tapestry of Christ in Glory, John Piper's baptistry window and Jacob Epstein's sculpture of St Michael defeating the Devil on the outer wall. Benjamin Britten wrote his War Requiem for the occasion, and it premiered here.
Motor City, long before Detroit had the name
Coventry made things. First it was cloth, and the dyed fabric was so reliably colourful that people said 'true as Coventry blue'. Then came watches and ribbons, and then, in the 1880s, bicycles. John Kemp Starley's Rover safety bicycle of 1885 gave cyclists the chain-driven, equal-wheeled design we still recognise. Cars followed naturally. Daimler began producing in Coventry in 1896, and the city became the heart of the British motor industry. Jaguar's story is tied to the city too: the firm that began as the Swallow Sidecar Company moved to Coventry in 1928. You can see the whole story at the Coventry Transport Museum, which holds one of the biggest collections of British road vehicles anywhere. The same engineering mindset produced Frank Whittle, born in Coventry in 1907, who patented the turbojet engine and changed air travel for ever.
Ghost Town and the sound of 2 Tone
In 1979 a Coventry label called 2 Tone Records launched a mix of ska, punk and pop with black-and-white checks and sharp suits. Its leading band, The Specials, led by keyboardist Jerry Dammers, with Terry Hall on vocals, sang about unemployment, racism and street violence while playing music you could dance to. Their single 'Ghost Town' went to number one in the summer of 1981, just as riots broke out in British cities. The title felt apt in a city where the car factories were shedding jobs. The Selecter came from Coventry too, and the whole scene gave the place a musical reputation far beyond its size. Another Coventry musician had an even weirder legacy: Delia Derbyshire, born in the city in 1937, helped create the original Doctor Who theme at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Sky blue, godcakes and other local ways
Coventry City are the Sky Blues, and the sky-blue kit goes back to the 1960s, when manager Jimmy Hill gave the club a makeover that included a theme song. The great day came on 16 May 1987, when Coventry beat Tottenham Hotspur 3-2 at Wembley to win the FA Cup, their only major trophy. Earlier, in 1981, Highfield Road became the first all-seater stadium in England's top flight. The local food is the Coventry godcake: a triangular puff pastry filled with mincemeat and topped with sugar. Godparents traditionally gave them to godchildren at New Year. The city is also the home of the poet Philip Larkin, born here in 1922, who later wrote of his home town being bombed and described how the city he knew had gone. And 'sent to Coventry', meaning deliberately ignored by everyone, remains one of the most famous phrases to carry the city's name.
Peace, twinning and a city of culture
After the war, Coventry decided to build bridges, quite literally. In 1944 it twinned with Stalingrad (now Volgograd), the first of the city's links with places that had suffered in the war, and later Dresden joined them. Coventry became known as the City of Peace and Reconciliation. Its post-war centre was among the first in Britain to be designed around pedestrians, with a traffic-free shopping precinct that opened in the 1950s. In 2021 Coventry took its turn as UK City of Culture, with events ranging across the city that started the year with the memory of its wartime ruins and finished with a new sense of itself. It also still has the three spires, from St Michael's tower, Holy Trinity and Christ Church, on its skyline.
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The Blitz
Published
For 57 nights in a row London was bombed, yet the most famous image of the Blitz was a photograph of a church still standing.