Domestic Buildings
The earliest remains of domestic building in
Coventry are the stone-vaulted cellars which have
survived in several of the principal streets and which
formed part of the largely timber-framed houses of
the more prosperous citizens. Those found in Much
Park Street and Little Park Street may well date
from the middle of the 14th century when building
plots were leased to merchants and others on part of
Cheylesmore Park. (fn. 26) Remains of one house in Much
Park Street were laid bare by bomb damage in the
Second World War; the shell of the cellar and stonebuilt ground floor remain, although the vault itself
is missing. Further south another medieval cellar
survives below one side of a court lying behind Nos.
31-32 Much Park Street. (fn. 27) Before the recent
clearance on the east side of Little Park Street
a two-bay vaulted cellar, probably of the later 14th
century, stood below part of a timber-framed
range which was set back from the street behind
a courtyard. The houses on the street front (Nos.
92-94) had been largely rebuilt in the 18th century
but the courtyard layout was almost certainly of
medieval origin. (fn. 28) No. 13 Little Park Street has
a cellar of two bays, parallel to and partly beneath
the street; the vault has been destroyed, but a
surviving door-head suggests a 14th- or early15th-century date. (fn. 29) As in most other examples there
was direct access from the street. The largest known
cellar, below the entrance to the Rose and Crown
Yard and Nos. 21-23 High Street, has two aisles,
each of four bays, divided by octagonal piers; the
vaulting-ribs are chamfered and either die into the
walls and piers or spring from moulded corbels. An
example with similar ribs and one central pier,
formerly in the Old Star Yard in Earl Street, has
been incorporated in the basement of the new council
offices. (fn. 30) Another was recorded at the junction of
Earl Street and Little Park Street. (fn. 31) There was also
a cellar on the site of the priory guest house before
the construction of Trinity Street in the 1930s. (fn. 32)
One on the west side of Bishop Street was destroyed
in 1958. (fn. 33) The first systematic attempt to record
these domestic crypts was made by W. G. Fretton
in 1876. He described as 'the most perfect of all'
an example at the junction of Bayley Lane with
Priory Street. Before the construction of Priory
Street it must have lain parallel to and well behind
the north-east frontage of Bayley Lane where this
took a sharp bend southwards. (fn. 34) The cellar, which
was filled up in 1966, retained access steps on both
east and west sides, original pointed doorways, a
window at its north end, and a cupboard recess. (fn. 35)
There were said to have been ancient vaults below
the widened Broadgate (fn. 36) and Fretton indicated the
position of several others, some of which were
probably post-medieval. They occurred in such
streets as Cross Cheaping, Smithford Street, Jordan
Well, and Gosford Street. None has been found
in the low-lying districts which were liable to floods.
In view of the large area of the city which was
already built up by the 15th century it is not
surprising that Coventry retained a high proportion
of medieval buildings until quite recent times. With
few exceptions these were of timber-framed construction. Because of the risk of fire the use of
thatched roofs was prohibited in 1474 and the
construction of wooden chimneys in 1493. (fn. 37) Many
medieval houses can be recognised in the collection
of over 1,000 sketches made by Nathaniel Troughton
in the mid 19th century. (fn. 38) In the central shopping
streets a number of these were destroyed by rebuilding in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, while
those in the Great Butchery, the Little Butchery,
St. Agnes Lane, and parts of Well Street and Cook
Street disappeared in the clearances of 1930-7. The
air-raids of the Second World War accounted for
many of the survivors. Nevertheless a survey carried
out in 1958 revealed a remarkable number of
timber-framed houses of medieval origin, particularly
in what had been the outlying areas of the old
city. (fn. 39)
One such area was Spon Street where ancient
houses had been altered or refronted but not
completely rebuilt. The majority of these were found
to be basically of the so-called 'wealden' type. (fn. 40) In
its standard form the wealden house consisted of
three units under a single roof - a central open
hall flanked by two-storied bays, the latter jettied
at first floor level. At the front the projection of the
eaves was greater above the recessed wall of the hall
than above the jettied side bays; here the structure
was stiffened by two curved braces set clear of the
hall framing and reaching from the angle posts of
the jettied bays to the underside of the roof plate. (fn. 41)
In Coventry this type of house, or modifications of
it adapted to narrow urban sites, has been found to
occur more frequently than in any other town so far
investigated. On the north side of Spon Street a
continuous terrace of at least five small houses was
identified (Nos. 157-162); (fn. 42) this was built as a single
unit, perhaps before the middle of the 15th century.
The structural evidence suggests that each house
was of two bays and consisted of an open hall and a
jettied upper room or solar. On the ground floor the
hall extended below the solar, occupying the whole
width of the frontage (c. 17 ft.) and incorporating a
cross-passage at its solar end. Separate kitchens, if
such existed, may have stood at the rear of the
houses. Other pairs of houses on both sides of Spon
Street were found to have been built on the same
plan; at one of these (No. 54) the curved brace in
front of the recessed hall still survives. The conclusion may be drawn that much of Spon Street
was built up, or more probably rebuilt, at a single
period to provide compact and comparatively lowcost houses. On the south side a wealden house on
a more generous tripartite plan (Nos. 14 and 15) had
a central hall which extended on the ground floor
beneath both its jettied upper rooms. At No. 67 are
the remains of another type of medieval house, roofed
at right angles to the street and having an open hall
at the rear and a two-storied jettied front originally
surmounted by a gable. No. 169 has a crown-post
roof of the 14th or 15th century and retains a pointed
arch to a cross passage. Beyond Barras Lane a hall
house of three bays (Nos. 121-123) dates from c.
1500. Other timber-framed buildings in Spon Street
are of the 16th and early 17th centuries or are older
houses drastically altered at these periods. Several
ancient buildings also survive at Spon End, one
(Nos. 97 and 98) being a hall house of the 15th
century.
In Far Gosford Street, a comparable area at the
east end of the city, a much altered group on the
north side includes two tenements which were
formerly a single wealden house of three bays. The
cross-passage in part of the eastern bay retains its
original partitions and doorways. In Gosford Street
the many timber-framed buildings which survived
in 1958 included one (Nos. 114-115) which had
traces of a two-bay hall with smoke-blackened roof
timbers of the 14th century. In the redeveloped area
round Cox Street many of the houses recorded in
1958 have since been demolished. A row on the
north side of Gosford Street (Nos. 1-11) were of
various dates ranging from the 15th to the 17th
century. The timbers of Nos. 6-7 were preserved in
1965 for possible re-erection elsewhere; this was an
early 16th-century three-storied house with a jettied
front of two bays and indications of a parallel block
at the rear. A similar but much altered house on the
north side of Jordan Well (Nos. 20-21) (fn. 43) formed
part of a demolished group which also included a
rather later frontage (No. 24) with unusual diagonal
framing. In Cox Street a house with a crown-post
roof (No. 22) was wrecked by bombing, (fn. 44) while
further north a pair (Nos. 53 and 55) contained
single bay halls of the early 15th century.
The earliest reference to New Street was in 1384 (fn. 45)
and this may have been approximately the date of
its construction. It has been suggested that the first
tenements there were erected for workmen employed
on the rebuilding of St. Michael's Church. (fn. 46) Many
of the houses were re-fronted in the 18th and early
19th centuries; all had been cleared away by 1960.
At least one (Nos. 21-22) was of the wealden type.
Another (Nos. 8-10), which was still standing in
1958, was a three-bay hall house of the late 15th
century. The north-west corner of the street was
occupied by a wealden house of four bays (Nos. 1-3
Priory Street). Its two-bay hall was divided by an
open arch-braced collar-beam truss and there were
remains of a 'spere' truss between the north end of
the hall and what may have been a cross passage in
the two-storied service bay. The south or solar bay
was jettied on two sides and had a dragon-beam at
its south-west angle; below this a carved post was
visible externally at the junction of Priory Street
and New Street. As in the Spon Street examples the
hall appears to have extended beneath the solar.
Bayley Lane, Pepper Lane, Derby Lane, Hay
Lane, and Priory Row still contained many medieval
and later timber-framed houses in Troughton's time.
There was earlier a large block of such buildings at
the south-west corner of St. Michael's churchyard
which was demolished in 1783-4. (fn. 47) The only
survivor in Bayley Lane (No. 22) is a two-storied
early-16th-century house with carved buttresses to
the vertical timbers, carved barge-boards, and
traceried panels to an angle bracket and its supporting post. Other decorative work of this period and
quality is now only to be found at Bond's Hospital
and Ford's Hospital. (fn. 48) A range of three houses at the
west end of Priory Row may have been built soon
after the destruction of the priory church in 1539.
The plan of the superstructure does not correspond
with that of the stone cellars below and it is possible
that the latter formed part of some medieval building
adjoining the west front of the church. The range
is three storied and of four bays, the upper floors
having deep jetties with exposed joist-ends and
curved brackets. (fn. 49) The Golden Cross Inn at the
junction of Hay Lane and Pepper Lane is a jettied
timber-framed house probably of early-16th-century
date.
In Much Park Street there were many timberframed buildings and the presence of former open
halls could in some cases be inferred from their
construction, notably at Nos. 63-64 and the Admiral
Lord Romney Inn (Nos. 88-89). These houses,
which were probably of the wealden type, were
demolished with the whole south end of the street in
1960. Little Park Street once contained a number of
substantial medieval houses, including those built
above the stone cellars already described. In Bishop
Street bomb damage and subsequent demolition
have removed all traces of the old buildings which
formerly stood there. At least two near the upper
end were large houses, one having a vaulted cellar
and the other being built on the courtyard plan. (fn. 50)
In the rebuilt shopping streets at the city centre
evidence of medieval work was scanty even before
the Second World War. There is little doubt, however, that some of Coventry's finest houses stood
along the south sides of High Street, Earl Street,
and Jordan Well. The documentary evidence, at
least for the 13th century, supports this view. (fn. 51)
Troughton's sketches show many timber-framed
exteriors in Earl Street, some having arched
entrances with carved spandrels. Among them
Palace Yard (see below) was partly of medieval
origin. The adjoining house, demolished in 1863,
had 15th-century traceried windows and an archbraced collar-beam roof. Drawings of Old Star Yard
further east and of other properties show roof trusses
which suggest the presence of open halls of at least
two bays. (fn. 52) A similar truss, probably of early-15th-century date, was found at the Dun Cow public
house on the south side of Jordan Well in 1958.
Later 16th- and early-17th-century timber-framed
buildings must have been fairly numerous in
Coventry and many of the alterations to earlier
houses, such as the division of halls and the insertion
of chimneys, took place at this period. There is little
evidence, however, of the wholesale rebuilding which
was carried out in many other towns between about
1570 and 1640. The only important early-17thcentury town house of which views survive was the
so-called Bridgeman mansion on the west side of
Little Park Street, demolished in 1817. It is said to
have been built by Simon Norton in 1610 and was
later occupied by members of the Bridgeman family,
including Sir Orlando Bridgeman (d. 1674). (fn. 53) In the
18th century it was the home of the Bird family, one
of whom is thought to have introduced ribbon
weaving to Coventry. (fn. 54) The building was of three
stories and attics, the front having two projecting bay
windows to the principal floors surmounted by twin
gables. The timbering was close-studded except in
the front and side gables which had square panels
with quarter-round struts. No examples of this type
of decorative framing, which was common in 17thcentury 'black-and-white' houses in Warwickshire,
now survive in Coventry. Barge-boards, angle posts,
brackets, and doorways were elaborately carved. The
principal first-floor room had magnificent fittings
including carved panelling, an enriched frieze, and a
ceiling with a geometrical pattern of moulded ribs.
Window lights flanking the central oriel gave the
room an almost continuously glazed front wall. After
the house was demolished one of its carved chimneypieces was installed at Bablake School. (fn. 55)
Palace Yard in Earl Street, which was built on the
courtyard plan, was destroyed by bombing in 1940.
Sampson Hopkins sheltered Princess Elizabeth
(later Queen of Bohemia) at the house in 1605.
Between 1687 and 1690 James II, Princess (later
Queen) Anne, and her husband were entertained
there by Sir Richard Hopkins. Parts of the refronted
north range, through which a carriageway led from
the street to the courtyard, were thought to date
from the 15th century. Other parts of the house were
rebuilt or remodelled by Sir Richard Hopkins in
1655-6, dates which appeared with his initials and
arms on the lead rainwater heads. The plaster which
covered the timbering and the mullioned and
transomed windows were of this period. The socalled 'state room', which had a carved stone fireplace and wreath ornament to the ceiling, occupied
the first floor at the south end of the courtyard. Below
it was an open colonnade leading to the garden. (fn. 56)
The principal staircase had ball-capped newels and
a pierced balustrade with panels of carved foliage
and scroll-work - a fine and early example of this
type of ornament. (fn. 57) Palace Yard was sold in 1822
after which the house was divided up, used for
various purposes, and gradually fell into decay. (fn. 58)
In 1921 an appeal was launched for its restoration
and after repair it was used as a centre for the work
of the Coventry diocese. (fn. 59)
In the 18th century Little Park Street continued
to be a favourite site for the town houses of the
gentry. Two fine brick fronts with stone dressings,
dating from c. 1725, still survived in 1966. No. 7 is of
three stories and five bays, having applied Corinthian
pilasters to the two lower floors, surmounted by an
entablature. The central doorway has a segmental
pediment and the window above it is flanked by
enriched volutes. Kirby House (No. 16) is set back
from the street and also has a three-storied front of
five bays divided by pilasters. The carved Ionic
capitals and the paterae above them, however, appear
to be late-18th-century additions. Both houses
contain contemporary staircases. No. 11 Priory Row
is of the same type and of equally high quality; it
was reduced to a shell by bombing and has since
been restored. The front, of five bays, has fluted
Ionic pilasters supporting an entablature at second
floor level; above the cornice is an attic story with
plain stone pilasters between the windows. The first
floor windows have brick aprons and all are enclosed
by stone architraves with prominent key-blocks.
The central pedimented doorway has a 'Gibbs'
surround. The house is set back behind a forecourt
enclosed by railings with, in the centre, wroughtiron gates surmounted by an overthrow and a lamp.
These three houses have features in common with
the west range at Stoneleigh Abbey, designed by
Francis Smith of Warwick in 1714-26. (fn. 60)
The late 18th and early 19th centuries are not well
represented by surviving domestic buildings in
Coventry. The best examples are four houses with
dignified three-storied brick fronts in Priory Row
(Nos. 7-10); others further east were damaged by
bombing and disappeared when the new cathedral
was built. To the west of Greyfriars Green some new
development took place c. 1800 on the site of an
earlier row of houses which had probably been
demolished during the Civil War because they stood
outside Greyfriars Gate. (fn. 61) No. 5 Warwick Row is a
large brick house with a three-storied front, an
arched carriage entrance, and a central Roman Doric
doorway flanked by paired columns. A much-altered
three-storied brick terrace further south has a
moulded eaves cornice, pedimented doorways, and
stone voussoirs to the window heads. Beyond this are
the remains of early-19th-century terrace houses with
stucco fronts and some contemporary ironwork; at
one of them (No. 29) George Eliot was at school
from about 1832 to 1835. (fn. 62) On the north side of
Queen's Road and the Butts (formerly Summerland
Butts Lane), which was built up after 1820, a few
frontages with architectural pretensions still survived
in 1966. At its east end, houses in Hertford Place,
demolished c. 1960, included Hertford House, a
substantial stucco residence in its own grounds
which had an entrance flanked by Doric pilasters
and a garden front with a central pediment and a
trellis verandah. It may have been built by John
Ryley (d. 1825) whose gravestone in St. Michael's
churchyard described him as 'of Hertford House'. (fn. 63)
The adjoining house in Hertford Place was smaller
but of similar architectural character. In the city
itself a certain amount of rebuilding and refronting
took place in the late 18th and early 19th centuries,
particularly as a result of street alterations. The
construction of Hertford Street in 1812 and the
widening of Broadgate in 1820 entailed rebuilding at
the main cross-roads in the centre of the city. The
new houses were three-storied and stucco-fronted,
some having shop windows below and canopied
balconies above. At the junction of Hertford Street
and Smithford Street a niche was provided at
second-floor level for the carved figure of Peeping
Tom. (fn. 64)
In the middle of the 19th century well-to-do
manufacturers and professional families were still
occupying the older town houses in Little Park Street
and elsewhere, (fn. 65) but residential suburbs containing
brick or stucco houses in their own gardens had
already developed in three districts on the outskirts
of the city. The superior character of the suburb at
Stoke Green and that on the high ground towards
Radford barely survived the expansion of industrial
Coventry in the later 19th century. (fn. 66) To the south of
the city, however, the Warwick Road area continued
to be the favourite site for middle-class terraces and
for detached and semi-detached houses. The most
impressive terrace is the Quadrant, dating from c.
1860, which consists of ten large three-storied stucco
houses built on a curved frontage in a still Classical
style. Of slightly later date is Stoneleigh Terrace in
Queens Road to the south of Greyfriars Green which
was designed by James Murray. (fn. 67) Nos. 1-5 are of
variegated brick with stone dressings, having Gothic
porches with polished marble shafts and carved
stonework in the gables and to the window-heads of
the second floor. Nos. 6-9 and 10-13 are blocks in a
similar but less elaborate style. The house called the
Towers at the junction of Queen's Road and Warwick Road has an ornate Gothic front and is part of
the same group.
Until the early 19th century most of the poorer
inhabitants of the city were living in the ancient
timber-framed houses in the less prosperous streets;
these had often been divided up, each bay of a
building forming a separate tenement. After c. 1800
dwellings were rapidly erected in yards, gardens,
and patches of open ground to house the growing
population of ribbon-weavers and others. (fn. 68) The
smaller cottages were of a low standard, frequently
built back to back in courts or terraces and having
little or no sanitation. The small streets in the area
south of Dog Lane (later Leicester Street and
Swanswell Terrace) had a particularly bad reputation. (fn. 69) The land between the Butts and Spon Street,
built up in the 1820s and 1830s, contained many
rows of watchmakers' or weavers' houses as well as
courts of two-storied cottages with double rows of
back-to-back dwellings along the frontages of Moat
Street and Thomas Street. (fn. 70) This area, like that near
Leicester Street, had been largely cleared for redevelopment by 1966. The Hillfields district to the
north-east of the city was laid out on open ground
between 1828 and about 1860; here the houses were
occupied almost entirely by ribbon weavers and were
of gradually improving standards. None was built
back to back and it is doubtful if this arrangement
had ever been found possible for weavers' dwellings
which required well-lighted workshops. Chapel
Fields in the west, built up after 1846, was an almost
self-contained community of watchmakers and the
lay-out included larger houses for the masters of the
trade (see below). When land in the Hales StreetWhite Street area was sold for building in 1848 it
was stipulated by the trustees of Sir Thomas White's
estates that the houses, which were evidently not
intended for the very poor, must have uniform
elevations and must each cost not less than £300. (fn. 71)
The rows of weavers' houses with their large 'topshop' windows were one of the most characteristic
features of the Coventry scene until the drastic
clearance which took place after the Second World
War. These were the dwellings of the outdoor ribbon
weavers who worked at home and owned their own
looms. Although some were shoddily built, others
in the central area had distinct architectural
character and provided good accommodation by
contemporary standards. The southern half of
Whitefriars Street, constructed in 1820, was built
up on both sides with uniform three-storied houses
with workshop windows on the top floors; below
there were stone voussoirs to the heads of the sash
windows and well-designed wood door-cases flanked
by fluted pilasters. Near Cheylesmore manor-house
a terrace of twelve houses, demolished in 1966, was
probably of the same date. Here the doorways, yard
entries, and windows on the street frontage were so
grouped that two units gave the impression of one
larger house. (fn. 72) At Hillfields the new streets were
built up with both two- and three-storied weavers'
houses. (fn. 73) A typical two-storied example of the 1830s
had a front and a back room on the ground floor
with a scullery built out at the rear; above were two
bedrooms facing the street and, behind them, the
workshop with its large window. A three-storied
house had a narrower frontage but greater depth;
the ground floor was similarly arranged but the first
floor had a front and back bedroom, while the whole
of the top floor was occupied by the workshop which
had windows at both ends. In each type there was
usually an individual privy and a small back garden.
There were a few slightly larger houses at Hillfields
occupied by small ribbon masters, but the principal
manufacturers were people of substance who lived
outside the area. (fn. 74) The last phase of the ribbon
industry, before its collapse in the 1860s, was marked
by the building of cottage factories - rows of threestoried houses in which the looms were supplied
with steam power by means of shafting carried
through the workshops on the top floor. The largest
scheme of this kind, built in 1858-9, was at Hillfields
within the triangle formed by Berry Street, Brook
Street, and Vernon Street. Except that the workshops were more lofty, the houses were almost indistinguishable from the earlier weavers' dwellings.
At Kingfield the cottage factory begun by the
brothers Cash in 1857 was never completed. (fn. 75) Here
the houses had front gardens and a definite attempt
was made to give the buildings some architectural
quality. (fn. 76)
The suburb of Chapel Fields consisted of houses
built for the needs of watchmakers, together with a
Baptist chapel, a school, and public houses. Most
of the masters' houses were facing what is now
Allesley Old Road; these were the conventional
middle-class terraced dwellings of the period, having
bay windows at the front, three bedrooms on the
first floor and servants' rooms in the attics. The
workshops were in two-storied wings built out into
the back gardens, their length increasing as trade
prospered. The three cross-streets, Duke Street,
Lord Street, and Mount Street, contained terraces
of smaller watchmakers' houses set behind small
front gardens. Each dwelling had a front and a back
room on the ground floor and two bedrooms; it was
two-storied at the front but at the rear a shallower
roof-pitch gave room for an extra story. The workshop, smaller than that needed by the weaver,
occupied the back room on the first floor and its
large window overlooked the back garden. In Craven
Street, on the south side of the suburb, the houses
were essentially the same but had no front gardens.
It is significant, in view of the social superiority
attributed to the watchmakers, that in none of the
houses were workshop windows visible from the
street. (fn. 77) From 1860 onwards, when first ribbonweaving and then watchmaking declined as staple
trades, specialised houses for outdoor workers ceased
to be built and new working-class housing in
Coventry followed the same standard pattern as
elsewhere.