BERLIN had one in the 20th century, Jericho had them as far back as 8,000 years BC and York has more miles of theirs intact then any where else in England.
Coventry got its very own by royal consent during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and if you look hard enough, you’ll spot its red sandstone remnants scattered here and there throughout our ancient city. Got it yet?
When seventeenth century poet John Taylor came to Coventry in 1639 he wrote ‘Coventry is a faire, famous, sweet and ancient city, so walled about with such strength and neatnesse, as no city in England may compare with it.’
In 1642, a young officer named Nehemiah Wharton arrived in Coventry as part of an advance Parliamentarian force. In a letter home he wrote ‘Coventry is invironed with a wall co-equal, if not exceedinge, that of London for breadth and height’.
What happened you may ask. Well, unfortunately, 23 years after these evocative words were written, our city wall, the symbol of medieval Coventry’s civic pride, was demolished along with its battlements, towers and imposing gates on the orders of King Charles II following the restoration of the monarchy after the English Civil War.
These city walls had played a pivotal role in the run up to that major event in our history which led to the trial and execution of Charles I and the replacement of the English monarchy with a Commonwealth.
They kept Charles I and his army out of Coventry during an attack on the city in order to gain the county’s powder store that was kept therein. The King had demanded the city’s subjugation but the city fathers refused and thus a skirmish ensued with the Royalists bombarding New Gate which was situated at the head of London Road.
It caused a breach in the adjacent wall which the attackers tried to penetrate but they were successfully stopped by the quick actions of local citizens who bunged up the hole with mattresses and furniture! The King left empty-handed, the city declared for Parliament and realising that events were not going in his favour, him majesty rode on to Nottingham and raised the royal standard. The Civil War had officially begun.
Coventry’s wall was built in medieval times, when in 1329 Edward III gave the prior and ‘goodmen’ of Coventry the right to raise a local tax specifically to fund the building of a stone wall to enclose the city. This was the way to get things done in medieval times and leading citizens of a town often took collective responsibility for the provision of local amenities and petitioned the crown for the right to levy taxes to provide them.
By this time Coventry was the leading commercial centre in the Midlands and well on its way to a new found prosperity and affluence based on the growing wool trade. The emerging class of a wealthy elite clearly felt they had something to protect.
The project was begun in 1356 with the first stone being laid by the Mayor Richard Stoke at New Gate. Over the ensuing years, stone by stone the wall was crept along in a clock-wise direction as each year’s tax levy paid for a certain length of the wall to be built.
It slowly encircling the town following land boundaries and encompassing those who cared to contribute personally though it also condemned many folk to live permanently outside the city.
The records of St Mary’s Benedictine Priory show how the new town wall and ditch swept across their various properties on North and West side of town, destroying 13 houses, wrecking seven gardens with more being given up on as ruined. Perhaps that’s why in 1498 records state the prior had not paid his Murage Tax (after the Latin ‘murus’, meaning wall) for 20 years. He eventually coughed up in 1501.
From start to finish it took almost 180 years to reach its final form and ran for 3.62km (2.25 miles) around the city when complete. It was approximately 3m (9ft) wide and between 4m and 5m (12-15ft) feet high. Across the main entrances to Coventry straddled five impressive gates, like the magnificent Greyfriars Gate, which stood on Warwick Lane, the main route in from the south.
Eight minor gates such as Swanswell Gate and Cook Street Gate stood over the lesser roads. They are the only two surviving gates in existence and can be spotted on the northern boundary of the city centre. In between the gates were various towers for the storage of arms, guns and other weapons.
The city gates would open at 5am in the morning to the sound of church bells and close at 9pm. During times of trouble, men were elected from each ward of the city to guard the walls in what was known as ‘watch and ward’.
Throughout its history the city wall was also accompanied by a large defensive ditch just in front of it. It generally measured up to 10m (33ft) wide and up to 3m (10ft) deep. At times it was badly maintained and often clogged with rubbish and other un-wanted debris chucked out by the various citizens.
Since the first in the 1960s there have been 16 separate archaeological excavations on Coventry’s medieval town wall and ditch making it arguably the most intensively excavated single structure in the city. Small sections of stonework survive and with the two towers are protected by Scheduled Ancient Monument status.
For a fascinating virtual tour of the surviving remains of the city wall go to www.historiccoventry.co.uk/wall/wall.php
