COVENTRY.
Dr. Philemon Holland, who translated Camden’s Britannia, is buried in the choir of Trinity church. In the window is a piece of painted glass of Leofric earl of Chester, lord of this place, and Godiva his wife: he holds a charter in his hand with this writing, I Luryche for love of thee grawnte Covetre tol fre. Stichell, a mile south of Coventry, has its name from the clays. The road here is paved very broad for a great length. St. Michael’s church is a very stately and magnificent building: the spire is very fine, and the highest of any I have seen for its base, but built of a mouldering stone. Over-against it is the town-house, a large stone building, and old, like a church: a very old wooden chair there, said to be that wherein king John was crowned; much old rusty armour; pictures of several kings of England, and other benefactors; and many inscriptions, Latin and English, relating to them. A vintner bought some ground north of St. Michael’s, and built a house upon it: he dug up great ruins of the old convent, and many coffins, and among the rest (as they say) that of Leofric and Godiva. This is a very large and populous city, but narrow irregular streets; and the houses chiefly of wood, and very old, hanging over the streets. The gates are many and stately: no doubt the walls were answerable, but now demolished for the most part, after the rebellion: in some places, where parcels are left, it is very thick, and so strong, that they only undermined it, and threw it down flat; as particularly in the meadows north of St. Michael’s, where it passed over the brook by an arch. Between that and the church stood the priory, founded by Leofric before the Conquest: some old walls of it remain. Here have been many elegant brasses in the churches, but broke up. The famous Cross is of a pretty model, but of perishing stone. The basis of St. Michael’s steeple is but twelve yards from outside to outside of the buttresses. Every road hence is paved with a broad high-raised causeway, from every gate a mile.
Griff coal-works here, forty ells deep, of vast compass. No sort of fossils found in them. Griff, from grave, grooff, digging. The soil sandy from Coventry hither, then black earth. The coal-mine runs from Coventry to Tamworth in a line: here are such breaches that intercept the strata, and such trapping and dipping as in Somersetshire: the fissures, upon breaking the track and parallelism of the strata, make them diverge generally. Great old toads are often found in the solid coal, leaving a cavity of their own shape. They draw away the water from the mines by an invention originally of the earl of Worcester, improved by Captain Savery and others: it works with a vast power from the atmosphere pressing into a receiver exhausted of air, by vapor, and then condensed. I saw the ruined chapel of Nuneaton. Many religious houses thereabouts, and remains of camps, castles, &c. and nothing else can make amends for the badness of the roads.