Steven Orland's
Heritage Open Days Weekend, Coventry, September 2005

Page 3 - Heritage Weekend 2005

Every year, around the middle of September, many places around the UK take part in the Heritage Open Days Weekend, when people get the chance to see inside many places of historical interest that are not always open to the public. Coventry always takes part in these, and here are some of my photographs from the places and activities that were available in September 2005....

The first place we visited was St. Johns Church in Fleet Street, near Spon Street.
From the outside, St. Johns looks quite plain, but on the inside, you can see that it has lots of beautiful things to look at. Even the organ pipes are brightly coloured!

After St. Johns, we went to see the Old Cathedral again - but this time to see the Wyley Chapel underneath the cathedral ground level. After problems with flooding, it was opened up for the first time in years for us to see inside, at last.

This was the place where services were held after the cathedral was bombed in 1940.

Later on we went into Priory Gardens where we heard an old story being told by a man dressed like they did in medieval times. It was a brilliant story and he made us laugh a lot, too!

After that we popped into the Priory Visitor Centre to make things - and here is Mandy with Pru Porretta who plays the part of Lady Godiva in many historical events in Coventry. Pru is always very nice to us when we see her.

The next day we went to the Old Grammar School in Hales Street.
There were several reasons why we went there.... firstly, it was the first time for many years that the place has been opened up for viewing, so we hadn't ever seen inside it. Secondly, there was a play being done there about the last ever hanging of a woman in Coventry, Mary Ball - and after that, Richard York was there to give a demonstration of medieval instruments.... and he always let's us children have a play on some of them - under his watchful eye! He teaches us all lots of things about history too.

First of all, here are some of my photos of the play:

After the play, one of the kind girls let my sister Mandy wear part of an old fashioned costume. The young actors were part of the Playbox Theatre Company, and they were extremely good, too!

And on the right is a picture of the "music man", Richard York, with Mandy, me and another boy (in the middle) playing some ancient drums - I think at least one of the drums is called a "tabor".
(Obviously, as I'm in the photo, I had to let my dad take this one!)

We also got the chance to accompany Richard with some medieval stringed instruments, while he played the harp (properly !)

And here are some more of the instruments that we heard demonstrated....

The next day we went to see inside Cheylesmore Manor House.

It was very ancient inside, and here is an old fireplace.

The last place we saw on Heritage Weekend was the Watch Museum in Spon Street. Dad took a photo of me with this old World War Two gas mask.

All photographs by Steven Orland except where stated.

Links to other places....