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

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, to enter horses, to give prizes, to attend balls; and if politics are never quite forgotten, especially since the suffrage has been extended and the