A quick word from the author.

ello... and welcome to my personal history of Coventry. I'm Rob Orland, and my interest in this city is simply that in 1965 I was born about a mile from the centre of Coventry in Kingston Road, Earlsdon. My father and grandfather were Coventry born too.

In May 2002, I began constructing our family website, the intention of which was to share the information about our family's genealogy that I'd gathered during the previous few years. I felt that I ought to pay homage to our hometown and include a page about Coventry, so I took my camera into the centre of town and took a few shots around the cathedrals and the archaeological dig in the old priory for inclusion on the webpage - and before I knew what had happened, I'd become hooked, and wished to learn more about our city's history... little did I realise that this one page would soon evolve into a website in its own right!

Clicking here will take you back to that early attempt at a Coventry page!

Before long, I'd started to take a lot more interest in the history and development of Coventry, and by the time I'd added a few more photographs and completely mapped out the route of the old city wall, the Coventry section of what had only been a family website, became the main focus - and not surprisingly, the part in which most visitors were interested.

On the factual side, I'm very grateful to authors such as David McGrory, plus many others, for writing such entertaining and interesting books about our old town. It is mostly from these that I have learned about our colourful past, and it has enabled me to fill in some detail about each photograph that I've taken to make the website more meaningful.

Flatteringly, many other Coventry websites, including the council, have placed links to Historic Coventry. However, I have no official affiliation to any of these, and I don't have access to archives or official records, so although I will always attempt to help people who send queries and questions by email, this isn't my 'job' and I do have limited resources and time.

Finally, I would like to thank all who have contacted me with words of kindness and encouragement. The feedback has been astonishing and quite unexpected, but it has clearly demonstrated to me that it has been a worthwhile hobby so far...