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Some History of our Town Wall.... Introduction - Building of the Wall The 12 Gates of our Town Wall Tour of our Town Wall remains.... Swanswell Gate Lady Herbert's Garden & City Wall Cook Street Gate Bishop Gate Watch Tower near Lamb Street Wall at Well Street Well Street Gate Hill Street Gate Wall at Bond's Hospital Wall at Fleet Street Spon Gate Greyfriars Gate Cheylesmore Gate Little Park Gate New Gate Wall at Gulson Road Gosford Gate Wall near Cox Street Mill Lane Gate Wall around Pool Meadow City Wall overlaid onto present day Coventry

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Greyfriar's Gate

he next gate in our tour is Greyfriar's Gate, which would have stood near the bottom of the modern day Hertford Street, at the corner of New Union Street. This beautiful engraving on the left from around 1782 shows the exterior view of the once formidable fortification falling into decay adjacent to the lonely spire of the former Greyfriars church which fell at the dissolution. The smaller illustration shows how it would have appeared to citizens inside the wall.

Cheylesmore Gate

Unfortunately, this whole mile or so stretch of city wall, from Spon Street through to Parkside, now leaves nothing behind for us to see. The foundations of probably nearly the whole town wall still lie below the various modern day developments, but the southern length of our defence has virtually disappeared from view.

After Greyfriar's, the next gate was Cheylesmore Gate which was actually the entrance to Greyfriars Lane and stood next to what is now St. Patrick's Road.

Little Park Gate

Adjacent to Cheylesmore Gate was Little Park Gate, unsurprisingly, found at the end of Little Park Street, which was literally that; - the entrance to the 'little park' that lay next to the great park which was originally reached by way of Much Park Street.... It all makes sense, really!

New Gate

rather unsubstantial piece of town wall still exists near to Parkside - part of the wall which ran directly southwards from New gate before turning sharply west towards the above mentioned Little Park gate.
In the photo above there is unfortunately not much wall visible, but sits largely hidden under the concrete plinth below the chain-link fence. If we turn to face north, the photograph below shows the line of the wall from the other direction, and New gate would have stood approximately on the centre reservation where the London Road sweeps round to meet the Ring Road. Originaly, before the Ring Road was built, London Road was simply a continuation of Much Park Street, and had been such for virtually as long as Coventry has existed, as can be seen on my maps page. In the background can be seen Whitefriars monastery.

And here on the left is an impression of New gate, which was the main exit from Coventry as you left for London. This was the first proper gate to be built as the town wall was begun in 1355.

Next we can follow a length of the Town Wall down Gulson Road and on to Gosford Gate

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