The turning to the right, Smithford Street, leads to S. John's Church, another building raised to the glory of God and the guild of the Holy Trinity, S. Mary, S. John Baptist, and S. Catherine. Nothing of the present church, built, it may be remembered, in some sort to commemorate the king's victory at Sluys, is earlier than 1357, for the first church, begun in 1345 and consecrated in 1350, disappeared before the more ambitious plans of a later time. Prayers were said therein for Isabella's "dear lord Edward," at whose tomb at Gloucester Cathedral so many pilgrims paid their devotions, to the no small gain of the ecclesiastics of that place. The new church at Bablake owed its south aisle—still called after his name—to William Walscheman and Christiana his wife, which Walscheman is described as "valet" (vadlettus) to Queen Isabell, and had of her gift control over the Drapery, where vent was made of "foreign" cloth brought to be sold within the city. The south (Walscheman's) aisle and the north clear-story are the oldest portions of the now existing building, the south clear-story, which is of different pattern, is not earlier than the fifteenth century, though it contrasts very favourably with the scheme employed both at Trinity and S. Michael's.[747] Off the north chancel-aisle was a hermitage, whereof traces have been found on the site of the present vestry. The church is small, the nave being but of three bays' length, but it is lofty and of fine proportion. The modern screen, however, strikes an inharmonious note.
Oblong as to ground-plan, though, curiously enough, never quite rectangular, the building, when seen from outside, is cruciform as to clear-story, and from the crossing springs a high fortress-like lantern tower with turrets or bartizans at the angles of the battlements. The east and west windows are restorations, and indeed the many vicissitudes this church has undergone, and its low situation, have frequently exposed it to two evils—restorations and floods. Granted to the corporation after the suppression of the guilds and chantries in 1548, the church was used as a kind of religious lecture-hall in 1608 and for some years later; and in 1648 as quarters for the Scots prisoners taken at Preston. The fabric was described as in a state of sad neglect in 1734, when it was linked to a parish for the first time in its history.
THE STAIRCASE, OLD BABLAKE SCHOOL
Close by the church and forming the view of all views to be dwelt on in the city, stand two picturesque black and white timbered houses, one given by John Bond for an almshouse for aged and decayed folk recommended by the Trinity guild, and the other the Bablake school raised by the benevolence of Mr Wheatley in the sixteenth century. Bond's Hospital, which contains some good seventeenth-century furniture, has been restored; but by preternatural good luck Wheatley's School escaped that devastating touch. The hall contains roof timbers possibly older than the bulk of the building, and an ancient staircase; and the room to the left on the ground floor has a fine Jacobean mantelpiece which came from Sir Orlando Bridgman's house in Little Park Street. There is an open gallery both on the ground floor and the upper storey.
The sight of these houses, grandly planned and strongly built, with lovely gables where barge-board and finial are marvels of the house-carver's art, is a fitting close to a day in Coventry. Let us hope that no restorer, modern builder, well-meaning or enterprising commercial man will ever rob us of the loveliness of Bond's Hospital and Wheatley's School at Bablake.
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