Coventry Survives

The Luftwaffe did a canny job of destroying what was simultaneously an industrial city and tudor town. Coventry is mostly filled with the concrete buildings that epitomise everything that was wrong with the '60s and '70s. Amongst the city's tallest buildings are some hideous tower blocks and a jumbo-size IKEA. If the Swedish companies stores are themselves flat-pack, that place must be the big bad grandpa of Optimus Prime.

Some of the gems of Coventry's heritage survive. One of them is now The Flying Standard, a Wetherspoon's. Stratford-Upon-Avon has a McDonald's built into a Tudor house and Warwick Castle is owned by Tussaud's. Big business and preserving the past go hand-in-hand in Warwickshire, it seems.