Lippincotts Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878 | Page 5

and for town-council meetings. The buildings
surround a courtyard, and are entered by an arched gateway from the
street; and, says Rimmer, it is hardly possible in all the city architecture
of England to find a more interesting and fine apartment than the great

hall. The private buildings in the old part of the town are as noticeable
in their way as the public buildings; and as many owe their origin to the
tradesmen of Coventry, formerly a body well known for its wealth and
importance, they form good indications of the taste of the ancient "city
fathers." In 1448 this body equipped six hundred men, fully armed, for
the royal service, and in 1459 they were proud to receive the
Parliamentum Diabolicum which Henry VI. called together within
shelter of their walls, and turned to the use of a public prosecution
against the beaten party of the White Rose: hence its name. One of the
private houses, at the corner of Hertford street, bears on its upper part
an effigy of the tailor, Peeping Tom, who, tradition says, was struck
dead for impertinently gazing at Countess Godiva on her memorable
ride through the town.
[Illustration: SPIRE OF ST. MICHAEL'S, COVENTRY.]
The great variety in the designs of windows and chimneys, and the
disregard of regularity or conventionality in their placing, are
characteristics which distinguish old English domestic architecture, as
also the lavish use of wood-carving on the outside as well as the inside
of dwellings. No Swiss chalet can match the vagaries in wood common
to the gable balconies of old houses, whether private or public: one
beautiful instance occurs, for example, in a butcher's stall and dwelling,
the only one left of a similar row in Hereford. Here, besides the
ordinary devices, all the emblems of a slaughter-house--axes, rings,
ropes, etc., and bulls' heads and horns--are elaborately reproduced over
the doors and balconies of the building, and the windows, each a
projecting one, are curiously wreathed and entwined. This
ingeniousness in carving is a thing unknown now, when even
picture-frames are cast in moulds and present a uniform and
meaningless appearance, while as to house decoration the eye wearies
of the few paltry, often-repeated knobs or triangles which have taken
the place of the old individual carvings. The corn-market of Coventry,
the former Cross Cheaping, is another of the city's living antiquities, as
busy now as hundreds of years ago, when the magnificent gilded cross
still standing in James II.'s time, and whose regilding is said to have
used up fifteen thousand four hundred and three books of gold, threw

its shadow across the square. Even villages of a few hundred
inhabitants often possessed market-places architecturally worthy of
attention, and sometimes the covered market, open on all sides and
formed of pillars and pointed arches, supported a town-hall or rooms
for public purposes above. The crosses were by no means simply
religious emblems: though their presence aimed at reminding
worldlings of religion and investing common acts of life with a
religious significance, their purposes were mainly practical.
Proclamations were read from the steps and tolls collected from the
market-people: again, they served for open-air pulpits, and often as
distributing-places for some "dole" or charity bequeathed to the poor of
the town. A fountain was sometimes attached to them, and the covered
market-crosses, of which a few remain (Beverly, Malmesbury and
Salisbury), were merely covered spaces, surmounted with a cross, for
country people to rest in in the heat or the rain, and were generally the
property of some religious house in the neighborhood. They were
usually octagonal and richly groined, and if small when considered as a
shelter, were yet generally sufficient for their purpose, as most of the
market-squares were full of covered stalls, with tents, awnings or
umbrellas, as they are to this day. The crosses were sometimes only an
eight-sided shaft ornamented with niches and surmounted by a crucifix,
and very often, of whatever shape they were, they were built in
memoriam to a dead relative by some rich merchant or landlord. As
objects of beauty they were unrivalled, and improved the look of a
village-green as much as that of a busy market.
[Illustration: STREET IN COVENTRY.]
But Coventry, as I have said before, is a growing as well as an ancient
city; and when places grow they must rival their neighbors in pleasure
as well as in business, which accounts for the yearly races, now
established nearly forty years, and each year growing more popular and
successful. No doubt the share of gentlemen's houses which falls to the
lot of every county-town in England has something to do with the
brilliancy of these local gatherings: every one in the neighborhood
makes it a point to patronize the local gayeties, to belong to the local
military,