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Here's my favourite place in Coventry again - the Old Cathedral in 2005 as it has looked since it was bombed on Thursday 14th November 1940.

Now by rolling your mouse over the photograph you can go back in time to see what it looked like around 1900 when it was still a parish church. Watch the ruined stumps grow back into tall pillars again, and the glass reappear in the windows! It's still a lovely place - but now the sky is the ceiling!

Please click here if you wish to see the two photo's separately.

Here's another pair of photos comparing the altar of St. Michael's in 1940 just before it was bombed with how people now see it in 2005.

Once again, here's another photo of the old cathedral that we're all familiar with. But if you roll your mouse over it you'll see it go back in time again, to the 1930's.

In the old photograph, the pavements at the bottom show that the 1930's photographer was standing in New Street to take this picture. New Street has long gone, and now we're standing in the grounds at the front of Coventry University.

The ground was once quite flat here as you came out of New Street, crossed over Priory Street, and walked up St. Michael's Avenue opposite. Now the ground has been built up, so you can climb St. Michael's Steps to walk between the Old and New Cathedrals.

Please click here if you wish to see the two photo's separately.

Just outside the Old Cathedral is Bayley Lane. This street has been around since early medieval times and was once next to the castle.


The postcard in the first picture above was from about 1900 and as you can see, it looks the same today with the cottage at number 22 and St. Mary's Guildhall next door. The only difference is that the glass is now missing from the cathedral windows!

In between the Guildhall and number 22 Bayley Lane (as mentioned above) used to stand these stocks, shown on the left around 1919. Many thieves and mischief makers would have once been locked into these as a punishment.

The stocks are no longer there, but there is still a set quite near to where I live - next to the Bull's Head Pub on the Binley Road.

If we look out of the small alleyway now from Hertford Street into Broadgate, we can see the Cathedral Lanes shopping centre and a silly tent above Lady Godiva's statue.


Back in 1892 it looked very different - it was a busy shopping street.

All "new" photographs by Steven Orland. All "old" photographs are taken from early postcards.

All photographs by Steven Orland

	Visit my sister Mandy's Website.
	See my dad's website about Historic Coventry.
	Our Prints of Historic Coventry website, where you can purchase prints of our city up to 18" x 12".
	Visit our Orland Family pages.
	The official website for our school - Ravensdale Primary School, Coventry.