Coventry's own secret garden in the heart of the city...

Coventry's own secret garden in the heart of the city...

Postby dutchman » Tue Dec 17, 2013 3:55 pm

Peter Surtees says that Lady Herbert’s Garden offers a little peace and tranquillity away from the hustle and bustle of city life

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The hidden jewel in Coventry’s crown for me is most certainly Lady Herbert’s Garden.

Tucked most discreetly away in a little corner of the city centre, it offers a little peace and tranquillity away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

Built early in the 1930s in memory of his second wife Florence, Sir Alfred Herbert most certainly bequeathed a beautiful and practical monument to Coventry, and all of its ciizens.

Being situated behind the Swanswell or Priory Gate, it was almost hidden away, but now extends all of the way up to The Garden of International Friendship.

Access to this garden can be made by way of the new (and quite incongruous) blue glass and steel. One of the finest sections of Coventry’s City wall still left standing can be seen if you take the path from Cook Street to Swanswell Gate.

This part of the wall was left standing despite orders from King Charles II to dismantle the whole of it at the end of the Civil War in 1645.

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As a spiteful act of retribution, the wall was to be destroyed in its entirety as a reprisal to the citizens of Coventry, for refusing entry here, to his father, Charles I the Royalist, at the beginning of that war in 1642.

This part of the wall, all 150 metres of it, has been in its present state since 1854, when, for some reason, of which I am not too sure, the city council this time, began to demolish it.

Thankfully, this act of vandalism ceased otherwise there would be nothing left of our wall except a few piles of sandstone.

It’s a great pity that the two remaining gates of this part of the wall are not opened up to the public, as I am sure that there must be items of historical interest lurking inside their sandstone interiors.

However, I believe that the gardeners, who incidentally do a fantastic job of maintaining the garden, keep their tools and equipment therein.

I once asked to look inside Swanswell Gate and one of the gardeners obliged by letting me have a nose around. It looked quite spooky!

I haven’t mentioned the flowers, plants and shrubs that abound within and outside of the garden, but if you look at my photographs, you will see that if one picture can speak a thousand words, then a dozen can say it all.

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Re: Coventry's own secret garden in the heart of the city...

Postby dutchman » Tue Dec 17, 2013 3:56 pm

For a long time it was known as "The Rope Walk" due to its proximity to Astley's rope factory.
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