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fan’. On each pinnacle of the second storey there was to be ‘the image of a naked boy with a target and holding up a fan’. The cross was 57 feet high, in four sections, with statues in the top three storeys: the lower of these holding statues of Henry VI, King John, Edward I, Henry II, Richard I and Henry. Above these were Edward III, Henry II, Richard III, St
Michael and St George. The top storey held statues of St Peter, St James, St Christopher and two monks, with representations of Liberty and Justice at the highest point. Several of these statues were said to have been taken from
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In 2007 the City
Council considered relocating the Cross to form the centrepiece of a new public square at Ironmonger Row and the Burges, but a public consultation indicated that it should not be moved. In 2018 the council wanted to have it taken down, but the people of Coventry started a petition to
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ordered that a new cross be made and on the
Thursday after Saint Matthias day in 1423 the mayor, Henry Peyto, held a meeting in St Mary's hall which officially sanctioned the building of a cross in Cross Cheaping. The Leet contributed £50 and the mayor also made a personal contribution to pay for it.
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From medieval times, a cross stood at the southern end of Cross
Cheaping, where it met Broadgate, about 100 metres from where the new one stands. This was the market place, and place of executions, and the earliest reference to a cross here is in a document dated 1300. This cross would probably have
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In 1771 Coventry
Council authorised the demolition of the cross, though some remains were still there after 1778 when a visitor to Coventry wrote that the decayed cross "...has no longer anything to please". The cross was then totally removed and its parts reused. Three of the statues still survive:
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During the
Commonwealth, as a result of puritan objections, six sets of royal coats of arms were removed from the cross in December 1650. According to the diary entry of John Evelyn on 3 August 1654, the cross was still in good condition. In 1688 major restoration work included re-gilding of most of
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An indenture details how the cross was to be made, based on one in
Abingdon, Berkshire, and made of ‘seasonable free-stone of the quarries of Attleborough and Rowington’. It was to be built on the same spot as the old cross and on every pinnacle of the lower storey have ‘a beast or fowl holding up a
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and set in the cross. The new
Coventry Cross was completed in 1544. It was brightly painted, and covered with gold. The city treasurer's accounts of 1545 include the entry "To Matthew Gilder for gildyng the crosse £8 6s. 8p." The nearby
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The 1544 cross stood for two centuries, but then decay was once more setting in. A map drawn by Samuel
Bradford in 1748/9 shows the cross in detail. But in 1753 and 1755 the top two stages were removed to avoid danger of collapse.
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The City Annals describe this cross as standing on eight pillars, and it stood for over a hundred years before it became unsafe and part of the upper section had to be taken down in 1537.
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public house, erected some 40 years later at 8 Hay Lane, was probably named after it, as well as the 16th-century
Coventry Cross public house at 29 Cross Cheaping.
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been carved from local red sandstone in the shape of a tall shaft topped with a simple cross, as was the style in the rest of the city and surrounding area.
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295:, wife of Henry VI, who moved the court there as London grew increasingly Yorkist in sympathy. The veneration of Henry VI only came to an end with the
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In the 1930s it was proposed to build a replica of the 1544 cross, but work did not begin until the 1960s. The modern cross — made by sculptor
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set up a commission of enquiry to look into miracles attributed to him and by 1499 his cult was even bigger than that of
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By 1506 discussions had already begun about replacing it, and a fund started. In 1541, a former mayor of London, Sir
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the cross, and it was said at the time that on a sunny day people could hardly bear to look directly at it.
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was a figure of particular importance in the Coventry area. A Lancastrian king, he was put to death in the
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In 2023, the cross was reinstated in a more prominent location, close to the proposed 2007 relocation.
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and in the alley known as Trinity Churchyard, it was a modern version of the historic
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The City carried out repairs to the cross in 1608–9, and replaced a figure of
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The new Coventry Cross at Broadgate on what was Trinity Street from 2023.
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stop this. This failed, and by January 2019 the cross had been removed.
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banned veneration of his image), it continued to grow, encouraged by
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562:"Modern Coventry replica of ancient landmark unveiled"
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Tudor Coventry Cross as shown on Bradford's Map 1748/9
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Monuments and memorials in the West Midlands (county)
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388:McGrory, David (2003). "Tudor Coventry".
780:Medieval undercroft (38–39 Bayley Lane)
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920:Buildings and structures in Coventry
511:"City centre set for £3.6m revamp"
426:, County of Warwick Volume 8, 1969
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838:Coventry Heritage and Arts Trust
392:. Phillimore. pp. 129–130.
291:, and which in 1456 was home to
18:Coventry Cross (disambiguation)
785:St Mary's Priory and Cathedral
614:Herbert Art Gallery and Museum
497:Coventry, The Making of a City
422:at British History Online, in
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232:Herbert Art Gallery and Museum
196:Herbert Art Gallery and Museum
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358:. Phillimore. p. 70.
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470:Walters, Peter (2013).
424:Victoria County History
141:Fifteenth-century Cross
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790:Whitefriars, Coventry
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222:two are currently in
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132:Early Medieval Cross
65:52.40822°N 1.50858°W
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256:Henry VI of England
224:St Mary's Guildhall
145:On 24 May 1423 the
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154:Tudor Cross
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914:Categories
342:References
275:. In 1494
254:See also:
230:is in the
147:court-leet
53:52°24′30″N
643:David Gee
572:10 August
273:Henry VII
238:over the
56:1°30′31″W
566:BBC News
515:BBC News
454:Archived
330:See also
261:Henry VI
250:Henry VI
244:Spon End
228:Henry VI
192:Henry VI
113:Coventry
84:Coventry
81:Location
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686:Writers
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127:History
852:People
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546:20 May
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204:Jesus
574:2023
548:2021
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