St. Mary’s Hall, a large building, now used for corporation council meetings, and festivities, erected in the reign of Henry VI., is one of the richest and most interesting vestiges of the ornamental architecture of England.  The principal room has a grotesquely-carved roof of oak, a gallery for minstrels, an armoury, a chair of state, and a great painted window, which need only the filling up of royal and noble personages, their attendants, and the rich burgesses of Coventry, to recall the time when Richard II. held his Court in this ancient city, and, with “old John of Gaunt,” settled the sentence on Harry of Hereford, and Philip of Norfolk.

In this chamber is to be seen a beautiful piece of tapestry, executed in 1450, measuring thirty feet by ten, and containing eighty figures.

In the free school, founded by John Moles, in the reign of Henry VIII., Sir William Dugdale, the antiquarian and historian of Warwickshire, was educated.  The income is about 900 pounds a-year, and the scholars have open to competition two fellowships of St. John’s College, Oxon, one at Catherine’s Hall, Cambridge, and six exhibitions at either University.  Previous to the investigations of the Charity Commissioners, the fine school-room was locked up, and the books of the library torn for waste paper to light fires.  At present, under the reformed system, the school is attended by a large number of scholars.

There are more than a dozen educational and other charities for the benefit of the poor, enjoying a revenue of many thousands a-year.

There are also several curious specimens of domestic architecture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to be found in Coventry.  It is, however, on the whole, a dark, dirty, inconvenient city.  The surrounding belt of Lammas lands on which the freemen have the right of pasturing their horses and cows, has prevented any increase in the limits of the city.

In the middle ages Coventry was celebrated for its “mysteries and pageants,” of which an account has been published by Mr. Reader, a local bookseller.

The chief manufactures are of ribands and of watches, both transplantations from the Continent.  The electors of Coventry distinguished themselves by their consistency during the Free-trade agitation.  They exacted a pledge from their members in favour of Free-trade, except in watches and ribands.  More recently these same Coventry men have had the good sense to prefer a successful man of business, the architect of his own fortunes, to a Right Honourable Barrister and ex-Railway Commissioner.

[The SHERBORNE viaduct, near Coventry:  ill12.jpg]