Coventry Cathedral

Coventry's first cathedral began as a small Benedictine monastery, endowed in 1043 by Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife Godiva. Rebuilding began shortly after 1095, and by the middle of the thirteenth century the church ran to 142 yards (130 m) in length and carried many large outbuildings around it. Robert de Limesey moved the bishop's see from Lichfield to Coventry, and from 1102 St Mary's Priory and Cathedral served as the seat of the diocese. It held that place until 1539, when it fell victim to Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, and only a few ruins of it remain. It was the only medieval cathedral to be demolished at the Reformation.

The priory's burials tie it to the family that founded it, though not as neatly as later tradition would like. Leofric was probably buried within the original Saxon church in Coventry, but records suggest that Godiva was buried at Evesham Abbey, alongside her father confessor, Prior Æfic. Gerard la Pucelle, who was Bishop of Coventry in 1183 and 1184, is among those recorded as buried at the cathedral.

The church that replaced St Mary's in the city's affections was not built as a cathedral at all. St Michael's was largely constructed between the late fourteenth century and the early fifteenth from red sandstone, and by the twentieth century it was one of the largest parish churches in England. In 1918 it was elevated to cathedral status on the creation of the Diocese of Coventry.

Its spire rises to 284 feet (87 metres) at the base of the weathervane, and to 290 feet (88 metres) when the weathervane itself is counted. It is the tallest structure in the city, and the third tallest cathedral spire in England, with only Salisbury and Norwich rising higher. The first bishop of the new diocese was Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs, who held the see from 1918 until 1922 and was buried in the cathedral; a bronze effigy of him, commissioned by Hamo Thornycroft, was laid over the tomb.

St Michael's was bombed almost to destruction during the Coventry Blitz of 14 November 1940 by the German Luftwaffe. Only the tower, the spire, the outer wall, and the bronze effigy and tomb of Yeatman-Biggs survived; the effigy was the only artefact to survive the bombing. What was left of the fourteenth-century church was a ruined shell, and it has remained one.

Provost Richard Howard had the words “Father Forgive” inscribed on the wall behind the altar of the ruined building. In the days after the bombing he established the twin priorities, resurrection and reconciliation, that have shaped the cathedral's ministry ever since. The cathedral stonemason, Jock Forbes, saw two wooden beams lying in the shape of a cross and tied them together; that Charred Cross stood in the ruins until a replica built in 1964 took its place on an altar of rubble, and the original is now kept on the stairs linking the cathedral with St Michael's Hall below. Howard also had three nails from the roof truss of the old cathedral made into a cross, at the suggestion of a young friend, the Reverend Arthur Philip Wales; that Cross of Nails was later transferred to the new cathedral, where it sits in the centre of the altar cross.

John Piper, then an official war artist, painted the ruins in 1940. The ruins of the old cathedral remain hallowed ground and are listed at Grade I.

A competition was held in 1950 to find an architect for a new Coventry Cathedral, and Basil Spence's design was chosen from over two hundred submitted. Spence, later knighted for the work, insisted that the old cathedral should not be rebuilt but kept in ruins as a garden of remembrance, with the new cathedral built alongside, the two buildings together effectively forming one church. The use of Hollington sandstone for the new building gives an element of unity between them. Spence worked with Arup on the design and John Laing built it; like the ruins, the new cathedral is listed at Grade I, designated on 29 March 1988. Queen Elizabeth II laid the foundation stone on 23 March 1956, and the unconventional spire, or fleche, 80 feet (24 m) tall, was lowered onto the flat roof by a helicopter flown by Wing Commander John Dowling in April 1962.

Spence's vision required that the new cathedral be filled with the best examples of contemporary art, in his own words “like a casket of jewels”, and he commissioned many of the works himself, working directly with the artists so that each piece contributed to the integrity of the whole. Jacob Epstein completed the monumental bronze St Michael's Victory over the Devil shortly before his death in 1959, and it was unveiled at the consecration. Graham Sutherland's tapestry Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph was commissioned in 1951, developed over ten years, woven by hand in Aubusson in France, and installed in 1962. Piper's Baptistry window, made with the glassmaker Patrick Reyntiens, was commissioned by the Coventry Cathedral Reconstruction Committee in 1955 and manufactured between 1958 and 1961. The windows Einar Forseth made for the Lady Chapel, installed in 1961, were a gift of the people of Sweden.

The cathedral was consecrated on 25 May 1962 by Cuthbert Bardsley, Bishop of Coventry. The precentor at the opening service was Joseph Poole, and the service was televised and watched by many. Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, composed for the occasion, was premiered in the new cathedral on 30 May to mark the consecration; the pipe organ installed by Harrison & Harrison also dates from 1962. In the same year the BBC broadcast a documentary, Act of Faith, narrated by Leo Genn, on the cathedral's history, destruction and rebuilding.

The cross Howard made from three roof nails became a symbol of peace and reconciliation well beyond Coventry. There are over 260 Cross of Nails Centres around the world, each holding a cross made of three nails from the ruins; when the salvaged nails ran out, a continuing supply came from a prison in Germany. The centres are coordinated by the International Centre for Reconciliation, and the cathedral's reconciliation work runs locally, between churches and community groups, and internationally, predominantly in the Middle East and central Africa, with terrorists and dictators as well as with local churches, tribes and gangs. One of the crosses was donated to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, itself destroyed by Allied bombing and likewise kept as a ruin alongside a newer building, and a replica was presented to the Chapel of Reconciliation that forms part of the Berlin Wall Memorial.

A medieval cross of nails has been carried on board every British warship that has since borne the name HMS Coventry. It was aboard the Type 42 destroyer Coventry when she was sunk by enemy action in the Falklands War; Royal Navy divers salvaged it, and the ship's captain and colleagues presented it to the cathedral. It went next to the following Coventry in 1988 and stayed with her until she was decommissioned in 2002, and then to HMS Diamond, which is affiliated to Coventry, at her commissioning ceremony on 6 May 2011, handed over by Captain David Hart-Dyke, who had commanded Coventry when she was sunk. The cathedral also holds a copy of the Stalingrad Madonna, drawn by Kurt Reuber in 1942 in Stalingrad, now Volgograd, and shown in the cathedrals of Berlin, Coventry and Volgograd as a sign of reconciliation between three countries that were once enemies. Josefina de Vasconcellos's statue Reconciliation, created in 1977 under the title Reunion and given to the University of Bradford's Peace Studies department, came to the cathedral as a bronze cast in the mid-1990s to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War; similar copies stand at the Hiroshima Peace Park, at the Stormont Estate in Northern Ireland, and at the Chapel of Reconciliation in Berlin.

The first Provost of the new cathedral, appointed in 1958 in readiness for the opening, was HCN (Bill) Williams, who brought the phrase “Christians heal the wounds of history” from his native South Africa. Williams turned the cathedral outward, leading a team deeply involved in ministry across the city, including its poorer areas, its different faith communities and its industry, and building relationships with Germany and elsewhere through the Community of the Cross of Nails link. Successive deans have brought their own emphases: John Petty, Provost from 1988 to 2000 and Dean in 2000, a focus on the healing ministry; John Irvine, from 2001 to 2012 and one of the co-authors of the Alpha Course, a strong emphasis on bible teaching and evangelism; and John Witcombe, Dean since 19 January 2013, a renewal of the early reconciliation priorities through the arts, including the creation of the post of Canon for Arts and Reconciliation. Justin Welby, then a canon of the cathedral, established a special day for bereaved parents after the death of his own daughter, and an annual service now commemorates children who have died, with a book of their names on display and open to any parent who asks. The building remains the seat of the Bishop of Coventry and of the Diocese of Coventry within the Church of England.