THE NETHERMYL TOMB.[ToList]
Beyond the west door is the north-east buttress of the tower, strengthened by a mass of masonry, part of which formed part of the old nave wall. The tower arch is high and very narrow, owing to the narrowness of the old nave. The interior of the tower is very effective, both from the height, which is almost 100 feet to the crown of the vault, and the beautiful lighting of the upper stages. Each of the large windows of the ground story is set in a recessed arch, and between the two lantern stages is a range of panelling. The vertical lines of the various stages are not continuous, a want of regularity, which would probably not have occurred had it been built a century later. Upon the floor of the tower are two small brasses, which mark respectively the centre of the tower and the point below the apex of the spire, showing that the spire has an inclination of 3 feet 6 inches towards the north-west. On the walls of the tower two very large brasses record the names of the Vicars of the church since 1242, and of the Bishops in whose Dioceses Coventry has been included from the earliest times. Of the latter, four were Bishops of Mercia, twenty-seven of Lichfield, six of Coventry, thirty-three of Coventry and Lichfield, thirteen of Lichfield and Coventry, four of Worcester, and two Bishops-Suffragan of Coventry.
The south aisle is 6 feet narrower than the north at the west end, but its want of parallelism adds 7 feet to its width at its far eastern end.
The south-west doorway has its original doors, though these have been subjected to restoration. The first chapel on the south side belonged to the Dyers' Company. When the principal trade of Coventry was the manufacture of woollen and worsted stuffs and the production of a special blue thread, so excellent that it gave rise to a proverbial expression, "he is true Coventry Blue", the Dyers were an important Company.[6] A chantry known as Tale's was probably attached to this chapel, as the salary of the priest, £5 6s. 8d., was paid by the Dyers' Company of London. An upper chamber for the priest existed as late as 1607; the floor corbels still remain. A large marble monument (removed hither from the chancel) has medallion portraits of two ladies—Dame Mary Bridgeman and Mrs. Eliza Samwell. The former with her husband, Sir Orlando (Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under Charles II), both died in 1701. The latter, dying in 1724, "ordered this monument to be erected as a remembrance of their great and loving friendship."
The Chapel is now the Baptistery. A large eighteenth-century marble font was removed to the Lady Chapel and a new Gothic one put in its place, so that there are now three in the church.
The south porch (1300) is the earliest part of the existing church. The inner doors appear to be of the early sixteenth century, the outer, though old, are of much later date and are not part of the original scheme. On the wall on each side of the inner doors are brasses of some interest. That on the right hand has a curious epitaph which runs thus:
Here lies the body of Captn Gervase Scrope, of the family of Scropes, of Bolton in the County of York, who departed this life the 26 of August, Anno Dni 1705, aged 66.
An Epitaph, written by himself, in the agony and dolorous paines of the gout and dyed soon after.
Here lyes an old toss'd Tennis Ball
Was racketted, from spring to fall,
With so much heat and so much hast,
Time's arm for shame grew tyred at last.
Four kings in camps he truly served.
And from his loyalty ne'er swerved,
Father ruin'd and son slighted,
And from the Crown ne'er requited.
Loss of estate, relations, blood,
Was too well known, but did no good;
With long Campaigns and paines oth' gout
He cou'd no longer hold it out.
Always a restless life he led,
Never at quiet till quite dead.
He marry'd in his later days,
One who exceeds the common praise
But wanting breath still to make known
Her true affection and his own,
Death kindly came, all wants supplied
By giving rest—which life deny'd.
The other brass, of 1609, has a portrait of Ann Sewell in Jacobean costume, kneeling, with an epitaph in which she is described as "a worthy stirrer up of others to all holy virtues."