Witweg: Coventry

A weekend of singing the services in Coventry Cathedral with the ECS choir.

The history of Coventry Cathedral is most interesting. It was bombed in 1940, and immediately plans were made to rebuild it. Germany also rebuilt historic city centres and cathedrals. However, in Coventry it was decided to leave the ruins as they are, and to build a new and modern cathedral, adjoining the ruins and forming an L-shape with them.

The cathedral ruins by night and by day

This also means that the cathedral isn’t built East-West as is normally the case. Through a glass wall engraved with angels and apostles one looks out at the ruins. The cathedral is meant to be a symbol of hope and reconciliation.

A view from the ruins towards the glass entrance and wall of the new cathedral

Looking towards the ruins through the glass entrance wall or screen of the cathedral

This weekend the services were in commemoration of the bombing of Dresden, 70 years ago, in 1945. Apparently both cities are twinned. On Sunday a 96 year old Englishman who had fought in the war in Germany, gave testimony of how his whole attitude changed when he saw mothers and children being killed. Since then he has been a staunch advocate for reconciliation and peace.

Lady Godiva

It is a strange city. The heart is almost gone. Ruins are replaced by concrete buildings, a material which in the sixties was considered to be indestructible. It seems there was no town planning. Apart from the cathedral and the ruins there is a very big shopping centre, consumerism being the religion of our time. A statue of Lady Godiva connects the old part with the new. There are some very old 14^th and 15^th century buildings scattered across the city centre. They have escaped the blast. One street which seems reasonably intact and looks very lively during the evening, each old house harbouring a restaurant, looks very dilapidated during the day with dirty window frames and grids to protect the windows. Besides the gaudy blue and yellow colours of IKEA are towering over the humble medieval houses.

A ring road is built around the heart of the city, a nightmare! It is too close to the centre and looks like the arteries around the heart, so close that it seems to strangle the city. The many loops, fly-overs and tunnels are so close together that before I and others realised we had to get off, we had missed our exit – many times that is. We went around innumerable loops and roundabouts. It was like going seven times round the walls of Jericho. But the ring didn’t fall! I wasn’t the only one to have trouble finding the hotel which was within sight but unreachable. It was just outside the ring road, and only a 12 minute walk from the cathedral, but on foot it meant negotiating two tunnels and a bridge to cross the ring, not very nice at night!

A view of the choir stalls with the crown of thorns as a canopy, the pipe organ on both sides and the tapestry, unfortunately partly covered by scaffolding.

Left: choirstalls. Right: pulpit and the crown of thorns

The acoustics in the cathedral are very poor for singers, and we could not hear the other side of the choir, but to those sitting in the nave it seemed to sound fine. The choir stalls are open, crowned by pieces of wood which represent Christ’s crown of thorns. To me they looked like birds, a flock of doves representing the holy ghost. Wrong interpretation apparently. The whole cathedral is full of symbolism and very fine modern art. But I wondered about so many things.

The exterior of the Chapel of Unity

Christian symbols in the marble floor of the Chapel of Unity, a present of the people of Sweden.

The Dove of Peace in the middle under the glass altar. A ball placed on the floor rolls to the centre.

The cathedral is a symbol of reconciliation, yes. But since then so many wars have been fought and are being fought, even in Europe near “home”. It is the hope of the sixties and seventies, when we were determined and believed that war should and would never happen again.

The Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane

The Chapel of Christ the Servant

Amazingly there was only a congregation on Sunday at the Eucharist in spite of the special weekend. It seems Coventry is not a tourist town. In the large basement of the cathedral there is a restaurant and a coffee shop, but both were closed during our stay. Probably because of half term.

The beautiful window in the Baptistery

Nevertheless, it was a wonderful experience singing in this special cathedral which I had always wanted to see and had heard so much about. Such an unexpected joy that now I could even sing here three Evensongs and the Sunday Eucharist.

A happy choir on the stairs to the Song School, beneath the charred cross, two burnt rafters from the old cathedral which fell down in this shape

We were given a very informative tour of the cathedral, which we enjoyed. Unfortunately the big tapestry of Christ dominating the cathedral was partly concealed by scaffolding as the tapestry had to be cleaned and vacuumed, a task performed every ten years.