Home Home

 
Index...

Search this site:
 
Page 11

Cox Street Wall & Mill Lane (Bastille) Gate

Town Wall near Cox Street

Minimap

On the north side of Gosford gate you will arrive at the longest existing section of wall, around two hundred metres in length.
It stretches from west of the Sky Blue Way / ring road island to just short of the Sports Centre across Cox Street.

'Outside' of the wall near Cox Street, looking westward.

The first photograph shows the eastern end of the remains, closest to Sky Blue Way - If I had taken this shot in medieval times, I would have been standing in the river Sherbourne on the outside of the wall looking westward towards the centre of Coventry.

The picture below is farther west on the "inside" of the wall looking back towards Sky Blue Way.

'Inside' (south side) of the wall near Cox Street, looking eastward.

It is along this section of wall that the final construction of the partially redesigned circuit was completed in 1534.

It is apparent and rather unfortunate that most of what survives of the wall structure here is only the rough inner part. The town wall's construction consisted of two walls made of properly cut stone, infilled with small stones and rubble, then filled with lime mortar.

Here's the same section as above, viewed from the north side looking to the south-east. Wall near Cox Street viewed from the north side looking to the south-east.
Wall near Cox Street - showing some of the neatly cut 'ashlar' stones

The picture on the left demonstrates that most of the usable outer stones were taken away, put to good use in the construction of other buildings. Just a few 'proper' cut stones can be seen remaining here.
In any building made of stone, the neatly cut outer stones used for facing a wall were known as 'ashlar'.

Mill Lane (Bastille) Gate

Mill Lane Gate

Wall near Cox Street - the western extent of the wall.

This last picture shows the western extent of the wall as it approaches the Coventry Sports Centre. This elephant shaped building, erected in the mid 1970s, sits across the position originally occupied by Mill Lane gate, or Bastille gate as it was first known. (Illustrated by an 1840 lithograph by Miss Eld, pictured above.) From here, the wall continued on and met back up with Swanswell gate where we began our tour.


 
 
 
Associated pages....
Home | How this site began | Bibliography | About me | My music | Discussion Forum | Steve's website | Historic Stoke, Coventry | Orland family website
Top of the page
3,130,074

Website by Rob Orland © 2002 to 2024