Coventry

In Coventry today I had an hour to wait for a train so paid a quick visit to the cathedral.

The mediaeval parish church of St Michael had only been consecrated as a cathedral for little over 20 years when it was destroyed by fire during a bombing raid in the second world war.

The bronze statue of the first Bishop of Coventry, Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs holding the cathedral church in his hands, sculpted by the artist Hamo Thorneycroft in 1918 was the only artefact to survive he conflagration.

The ruined walls of the mediaeval building with fragments of 15th century glass clinging to the stone mullioned gothic windows sits side by side with Sir Basil Spence's beautiful 20th century cathedral