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Some History of our Town Wall.... Introduction - Building of the Wall The 12 Gates of our Town Wall Tour of our Town Wall remains.... Swanswell Gate Lady Herbert's Garden & City Wall Cook Street Gate Bishop Gate Watch Tower near Lamb Street Wall at Well Street Well Street Gate Hill Street Gate Wall at Bond's Hospital Wall at Fleet Street Spon Gate Greyfriars Gate Cheylesmore Gate Little Park Gate New Gate Wall at Gulson Road Gosford Gate Wall near Cox Street Mill Lane Gate Wall around Pool Meadow City Wall overlaid onto present day Coventry

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Town Wall around Pool Meadow

The original line of the wall between Mill Lane and Swanswell gates was rather different to the finished product seen laid out in John Speed's map of 1610.
The original route taken by the wall as it encompassed the Prior's land is shown by the dashed line in the small map on the right. From Mill Lane Gate, the wall stretched westward, following within yards of the south side of the river, until it passed Priory Mill and came to a tower at the junction with Hales Street and what used to be the entrance to New Buildings. This tower would nowadays be approximately outside the entrance to Sainsbury's at the bottom of Trinity Street.

In the 1930's, while much alteration was happening around the centre of Coventry, John Bailey Shelton took the opportunity to excavate many sites, and it was he who discovered the remains of the original line of town wall and the tower, to which he referred as "Priory Tower".

However, in 1462 Prior Shotswell made complaints to the council, one of which expressed his annoyance at fish being stolen from the his pool (then known as St. Osburg's pool, now Pool Meadow). At the request of the Prior, the wall was diverted at great expense to enclose the pool, and it was at this time that Priory (now Swanswell) Gate was built. Previously the wall had been continuous from Cook Street Gate to the tower mentioned above.

The dotted line shows the later rebuild to encompass the Prior's pool. This area was to become the Pool Meadow that we now know, after being drained from the marsh land that it had become by the early 19th century.

The beautiful view of 1809 on the left shows the land across Pool Meadow, looking southward towards the churches of St. Michael's and Holy Trinity.

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