I've selected an unusual pairing for the next photographs. Before scrolling down to the second picture, most recent visitors to Coventry's city centre will be quite familiar with this first view looking across Millennium Place, through the Whittle Arch to the slender spires.
Just a few years ago, of course, (before 2002) I would have been standing inside the
Coventry Theatre building to take this photo. Before 1937, when Trinity Street was built, we would have been looking towards a narrow entrance to New Buildings. However, another century before that, a rural looking scene quite unimaginable in current times could be viewed right here in the middle of Coventry....
This beautiful engraving of "Priory Mill Dam" published in 1814 from a drawing by J. C. Smith gives us a glimpse of what this area looked like before it was totally drained around 1840. The mill dam had once been known as St. Osburg's Pool and was heavily fished by the Benedictine monks, the remains of whose Priory can be seen just to the right of Holy Trinity spire.
In ancient times, all this low lying ground was covered by water and would have joined up to the
Swanswell Pool forming a large lake known as Babba Lacu.
