Day 132 of 365 - Old Grammar School!

Welcome to day 132 of 365 (Finished image after Editing)

The original photo was taken late this afternoon. It is of the building that is known as the 'Old Grammar School'. However the 'Grammar School' was originally a Hospital. The original building was constructed during the middle of the 12th Century by Prior Lawrence of the Benedictine Monastery of St. Mary's Priory (Coventry's First of Three Cathedrals). The building was known as the Hospital of St John, it provided help and shelter to the poor and sick of the area. During the middle of the 14th Century the Hospital was rebuilt as the sandstone building that we see today. It was ran as a religious site until the reign of King Henry VIII, when It was closed down during the dissolution of the monasteries. The man sent to close down the Coventry monasteries on behalf of the King was John Hales. He then purchased the site for £400 on the condition he would start a Free School in the building bearing the King's name. John Hales was already using the old Whitefriars friary as the first King Henry VIII School before he moved the School to this building. It is said that King Henry VIII's daughter Queen Elizabeth I visited the School on her trip to Coventry in 1565 and supplied a donation for the upkeep of the building. Over the years part of the building was knocked down so that the road outside could be widened. This was renamed as Hales Street. The King Henry VIII School was moved to its present location in Warwick Road (third site for the School) in the mid 1880's where is remains to this day. Sadly the building has remained empty for over 20 years and is in need of some major repairs. As of March this year planning permission was granted so that the repairs can be carried out. It has also just been announced that the Coventry Transport Museum will be taking over the building to repair and convert the site into an educational extension for the Museum.

The building is classed as a Grade I listed building. The building is number 11 on my list of 19 (Grade I) Listed buildings in Coventry that I hope to photograph.

As always the shot was taken with my iPhone 5. The photo was taken using the camera App ExposerGL for iPhone. The original image can be found here: Unedited original Image.

First of all I used a filter from the app ExposerGL called Miami Sunset, this was to give the sky a golden look (the same as yesterdays image). Next I used the app called Handy Photo to perform a little restoration on the windows of the building. I did this by cloning away the boards with the upper part of the windows. I also deleted the crossing bollard and the more modern parts within view of the building. I used the same app to crop the image into a square and give it a dark Vignette. Finally I used Distressed FX to add extra features and texture to the image using the Birds Soulmate overlay and the Vanilla Texture.