CovSoc member, and Chair of the Friends of Coventry Cathedral, Martin Williams, tells us the fascinating story of 11 Priory Row. Martin writes….
Last week I attended a Cathedral committee meeting in St Michael’s House, 11 Priory Row – the house next door to the Cathedral with that lovely Georgian front. As I walked towards the entrance door it struck me how we tend to take that notable building for granted. It is a significant building with a fascinating history.
After World War II number 11 Priory Row came under threat from Coventry’s city planners as they planned the city’s future layout. At that stage Sir Albert Richardson spoke out to defend its Georgian façade “only equalled in England by Kensington Palace”. Richardson was a leading English architect, teacher and writer about architecture during the first half of the 20th century. He was Professor of Architecture at University College London, a President of the Royal Academy, editor of Architects’ Journal, founder of the Georgian Group and the Guild of Surveyors and Master of the Art Workers’ Guild. In other words, he was someone who knew what he was talking about!
11 Priory Row was left a mere shell by incendiary bombs early in the war. Before the war it had been one of Coventry’s architectural gems. Mary Dormer Harris, the most famous local historical researcher of that period, called it “a testimony to the skill and taste of some early 18th century builder.”
We know a great deal about the history of 11 Priory Row. The house dates back to the reign of George II and was built by a Coventry wine merchant. His extensive wine cellars survive. Even though many people believe them to be haunted, they are still in use – no longer for wine but for general storage.
Older history books record a local legend that links 11 Priory Row with two other Georgian houses in Coventry city centre. The other houses are Kirby House in Little Park Street and number 7 Little Park Street, and all three houses still stand today with only minor exterior adjustments. The story tells how three brothers competed with each other to use their own architects and to build the most beautiful house in the city, with the winner being paid for by the other two. The identity of the three brothers is not known precisely, though it has been suggested that they were silkmen from the Bird family, an old Coventry family of some substance and influence.
Coming as I do from a legal background, I feel that doubt is cast on this local legend by the wording of an old conveyance dated 21st September 1741 that described number 11 Priory Row as “a new erected mansion house built at the expense of David Wells together with the outhouses etc….near to a certain place called St Michael’s Churchyard”. By that document St Michael’s House was conveyed by Mr Wells to John Hollyer for the sum of £1,725.
It is also recorded that some twenty years earlier when Wells bought the property it had been described as “all that messuage or tenement of a capital wine vault and premises in Priory Row, with the appurtenances and one garden, and one orchard, situate within the site of the late dissolved Priory in the City of Coventry”. Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries was still being referred to in legal papers some 200 years after the event!
In the 19th century 11 Priory Row became the residence of a famous Coventry citizen, Dr Nathaniel Troughton, who was a local surgeon and a trustee of many church charities. He produced 11 portfolios of pencil drawings of 19th century Coventry streets, buildings, and interiors. In April 1876 the drawings were presented to the City by Troughton’s widow, and you can view some of them today online on the Herbert Museum website.
Troughton died in 1868 and left his half of the property to his daughter, Fanny. As a result of his mortgage arrangement he was only a part-owner, so Fanny bought out the other owner. She kept the property until around 1890 when she sold it to the local Volunteer Corps (a forerunner of the Territorial Army) for use as a club.
In 1894 the Coventry Benevolent Burial Society took over the building. It was re-named the Priory Assembly Rooms and became a hub for local social activities. I read in a directory for the years 1912 / 1913 that 11 Priory Row was at that time the base used by all the following:
- Amalgamated Society of Tool Makers (No. 1 Branch). Every Saturday.
- Young Liberals League
- Coventry Benevolent Burial Society
- Perfect Thrift Building Society Offices
- Christadelphian Meeting House
- Shorthand Writers Association
- Manchester Unity of Odd Fellows Lodge 2 (Earl of Craven) Every other Monday.
- Foresters Court (Countess Craven). Females only. Alternate Tuesdays.
- Amalgamated Union of Co-operative employees
- Carpenters and Joiners, No. 1 Branch
- Coventry Swimming & Life Saving Room
- Property Owners Association Room
- Coventry Orchestral Association Rooms
The Coventry Benevolent Burial Society moved out in 1936 and the house was sold at auction.
Just before the start of World War II number 11 Priory Row became the headquarters of Coventry Women’s Voluntary Services. As I mentioned earlier, incendiaries caused extensive damage and rendered the building unfit for use early on in the war.
Post-war building restrictions delayed the restoration of the building as priority was given to housing. In 1952 (by which time the owners were the trustees of the estate of Mr W Coker Iliffe) the approvals of Coventry Corporation and of the Royal Fine Art Commission enabled a building restoration licence to be granted. One of the building’s interior glories had been its staircase of which an exact copy was known to exist elsewhere. It was faithfully reproduced, as can still be seen today. The restoration architects were Donald Macpherson (Bloomsbury Square, London) and a Coventry architect who is still remembered by many members, Mr Alfred H. Gardner. The building became offices.
My first contact with 11 Priory Row was one Saturday morning as a child in the 1950s when my parents asked me to deliver their mortgage payment to the office of the Coventry Provident Mutual Building Society housed there.
Shell-Mex BP occupied the building for some years before the Cathedral acquired it in the mid-1960s. Its use as offices continued for a while with the Cathedral as the commercial landlord. In 1972 the much-photographed façade was featured in the Birmingham-produced television soap opera “Crossroads” which transformed it into the entrance of the hospital where Sandy was being treated. I hope that the Cathedral received a suitable facility fee!
Once transferred into the Cathedral’s ownership the building became known as Gorton House, a tribute to the Rt Rev Neville Gorton (1888-1955) who was Bishop of Coventry from 1943 to 1955. That changed in 1974 when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Donald Coggan, opened the newly re-furbished Gorton House as the Coventry Cathedral Centre of Studies. The facilities included a library, a reading room and two seminar rooms. The Cathedral offered three-month training courses in reconciliation, and similar courses of different lengths in conjunction with the Lanchester Polytechic (now Coventry University). An eight-week summer school was arranged as well as provision for individual students. The local newspaper reported advance bookings from Eckert University in Florida and Sewanee Theological College in Tennessee.
The next big step in the building’s history saw it become the Provost’s House/Deanery. The Cathedral Chapter had felt for some time that the close location and prestigious appearance of the building made it an obvious candidate to be a Deanery, and the opportunity for the change arose in 1988 with the appointment of the Very Rev John Petty as Provost. The upgrading of the listed building took a year to negotiate with the local conservation planners who were also persuaded to agree the addition of a roof garden to provide the residents with outside access in the absence of a regular garden. Mind you, only discreet sunbathing is possible when there are paying spectators looking down from St Michael’s spire!
In 2011, the building was refurbished again and renamed St Michael’s House to become the focus of the Cathedral’s ministry of reconciliation. It housed the office of our Canon for Reconciliation as well as providing space initially for staff appointed by the current Archbishop of Canterbury to assist his reconciliation work around the Anglican Communion for which he found the story of Coventry Cathedral to be a useful tool. With the departure of Canon Sarah Hills, the Canon for Reconciliation, the building changed to its current use as offices and meeting spaces in support of the Cathedral’s ministry.
In my dash through the history of 11 Priory Row I must not overlook the iron railings that surround the front courtyard. That ironwork survived the war as you can see from the picture above, and it is a link (slightly tenuous) with Francis Skidmore, the internationally known Coventry artist in metal – famous for the ironwork of the Albert Memorial in London as well as for the Hereford Cathedral screen that is now restored, preserved and prominently displayed in the V & A Museum.
The grapes and vines of the railings of 11 Priory Row are a link with the trade of its original builder. They were made by George Pridmore, an apprentice of Francis Skidmore, who in 1890 set up his own workshops in Much Park Street and in the following forty years became almost as well-known as his former master.
So, do have a good look next time you pass by St Michael’s House, and judge for yourself how it compares with Kensington Palace.
This article was first published in the October newsletter of the Friends of Coventry Cathedral