simplicity. It can only be explained in some such a manner as this. Draw an acute angle—say something a little less than a right angle—and cut it into compartments; or, if preferred, an obtuse angle, and cut this into compartments also. Now the roadway may be so prescribed as to prevent right angles from being made on the basement, but the complementary angles are ingeniously made out by allowing the joists to be of extra length and cutting the ends off when they come to the square. The effect is extremely picturesque, and I cannot remember seeing this peculiar piece of construction elsewhere. The villages of Warwickshire are generally remarkable for their picturesque beauty. Meriden, near Polesworth, is extremely fine, and from its churchyard are some very beautiful views.
Merivale Hall is the seat of the Dugdale family. Sir William Dugdale inherited the estates in 1624, and published his celebrated Monasticon between 1655 and 1673. Very little has been added to our knowledge of the subject since this marvellous production. These pages are much indebted to it, and some charters that have been recorded by Sir William Dugdale would now be entirely out of reach, if not lost, but for his labours.
Coventry is a very ancient city. A convent was built here by Earl Leofric and his Countess Godiva, a few years before the Norman conquest, and in it they both were buried. To quote a summary of the
city history from a careful writer: “Henry IV. held a parliament here called the unlearned, or Layman’s Parliament, from the forbidding in the writs of the return of lawyers, and from the stringent laws that were passed relative to the privileges of the Church. Henry V., when Prince of Wales, was committed to prison by the Mayor of Coventry for his disorderly conduct here on one occasion. Henry VI. and his Queen, Margaret, were great benefactors to the city; and its inhabitants remained faithful to the cause of Lancaster during the dreadful period of the Wars of the Roses.” Henry VII. also came to this city directly from Bosworth field, and Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned here. The spire of Coventry (St. Michael’s) is one of the most beautiful in England. The church is said by the historian of Coventry to be, next to Yarmouth, the largest in the kingdom; but if churches (not being cathedral) where parochial service is held are intended, neither one or the other is nearly the largest. The quaint irregular buildings in front form a beautiful composition with St. Michael’s spire; they are occupied as dwelling-houses.
“The parish churches, ancient hospitals, monastic buildings, and old timber houses of Coventry, are still numerous, and exhibit in their varied features, historical relations, and distinctive characters, abundant matter for the study of the architect and antiquary,” so says Britton in his excellent work on the Antiquities of English Cities. St. Mary’s Hall is engraved in Britton’s work, and here it is just seen on the left hand; a beautiful gable projects before it. This hall was commenced in 1394, and finished in 1414, on the site of an old hall; the
