Whitefriars, Coventry facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Whitefriars |
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Whitefriars around 1776, painted by Moses Griffith.
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| General information | |
| Type | Friary |
| Town or city | Coventry |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 52°24′18″N 1°30′05″W / 52.40502°N 1.50148°W |
| Current tenants | Herbert Art Gallery and Museum |
| Opened | 14 February 1342 |
| Renovated | 1965 |
| Owner | Coventry City Council |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 2 |
The buildings known as Whitefriars are the remaining parts of a Carmelite friary. A friary is a type of monastery where friars, who are members of a religious group, live and work. This one was started in 1342 in Coventry, England.
Whitefriars was first a home for friars until a time called the dissolution of the monasteries. This was when King Henry VIII closed many religious houses in England. In the 1500s, John Hales owned the buildings. They were used as King Henry VIII School, Coventry before the school moved to another location. Later, in the 1800s, the buildings became a workhouse. A workhouse was a place where poor people could live and work in exchange for food and shelter.
Today, the buildings are used by the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry.
Only a few parts of the original friary buildings remain. These include the eastern cloister walk, a special gateway in Much Park Street, and the foundations of the friary church. A cloister is a covered walkway, usually around a courtyard in a monastery. The surviving cloister walk was one of four that once existed. It is built from red sandstone. The wooden roof you see today is not the original. It is believed to have come from another nearby building in the 1500s.
Some places in Coventry are named after the friary. Examples include the Whitefriars Ale House and the Whitefriars Housing Group.
Contents
Exploring Whitefriars History
How Whitefriars Began
The Whitefriars friary was founded on February 14, 1342. Sir John Poultney helped to establish it. This happened about 100 years after the Carmelite friars first arrived in England. The friary was built on land that used to be fields and orchards.
The Carmelites were a "mendicant" religious order. This means they relied on donations and gifts from people. They received support from those they taught and from pilgrims. Pilgrims were people who traveled to visit their special shrine of Our Lady of the Tower. This chapel was in the city wall near New Gate. Many travelers would offer gifts there, hoping for a safe journey.
In 1344, King Edward III gave land to help expand the buildings. He made a similar gift again in 1352. Many local people also gave money to the friary. For example, in 1384, Lord Basset of Drayton gave £300 to make the church bigger. In 1419, William Botener of Withibroke gave a gift that greatly enlarged the monastery. In 1506, Thomas Bonde of Coventry left 20 "marks" (an old type of money) to help rebuild the cloisters.
During excavations of the church, a coat of arms from the Ferrers family was found. This suggests that this important family also gave donations. Carmelite friaries depended on these gifts to grow. The Coventry friary was built and expanded over time as money became available.
The church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It was one of the longest friary churches in England. It was also one of the first buildings constructed on the site. Like the rest of the friary, the church was made from red sandstone blocks. Its inside was painted white with beautiful stone decorations. The floor had patterned clay tiles made locally. In the choir area, the wooden seats and "misericords" were finely carved. Misericords are small ledges on the underside of hinged seats in churches. Some of these carvings survived and were later moved to the Old Grammar School.
Whitefriars in the Tudor Period
Whitefriars closed on October 1, 1538. This was part of King Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in England. The 14 friars who lived there signed a document to give up the friary. In 1544, the King gave the friary to Sir Ralph Sadler. Sir Ralph then sold it to John Hales. John Hales had bought many former monastery properties in Coventry.
Hales tore down some parts of Whitefriars. He turned part of the cloister into his home, calling it Hales Place. He also changed the "chancel" of the church into a grammar school. The chancel is the part of a church near the altar. He used the choir stalls as seats for the students. The church and its churchyard were bought by George Pollard and Andrew Flammock. They later sold it to the Coventry Corporation in 1543.
In 1545, John Hales started King Henry VIII School, Coventry. This was a free grammar school. It was located in the choir stalls of the Whitefriars church. He paid for the school himself, giving the head teacher a very good salary of £30 per year.
During the time of Queen Mary (1553–1558), John Hales, who was a Protestant, left England. He went to Frankfurt, Germany, because of his religious beliefs. While he was away, the Coventry Corporation moved the school. It went from Whitefriars church to the Hospital of St. John the Baptist. The Corporation then claimed the church as a local parish church.
The friary was also used to hide a printing press for a religious group called Puritans. This happened while Hales was abroad. Even though he said he didn't know about it, he had to pay a large sum of money as a penalty.
Queen Elizabeth I's Visit
In August 1565, Queen Elizabeth I visited Coventry. She stayed for two days at Whitefriars with John Hales. She described the building as a "fine house." Later, between November 25, 1569, and January 2, 1570, Mary Queen of Scots stayed in Coventry under Elizabeth's orders. She spent some of this time at Whitefriars.
John Hales passed away on January 5, 1572. His properties then went to his nephew, John Hales II. The Hales family moved to a new house in Coventry. They rented Whitefriars to Lord Henry Berkeley of Caludon Castle.
Whitefriars in Later Years
The Whitefriars residence had several owners over time. In 1801, it was sold to the Board of Directors of the Poor. They turned it into a workhouse. People living there worked long hours, 12 hours a day in winter and 13 in summer. They had only short breaks for meals. Young children at the workhouse received a basic education. In 1906, a special children's building was added.
The cloister building was damaged in 1940 during a bombing raid. In 1943, it became a Salvation Army hostel. After a big restoration project in 1965, it opened in 1970 as "Whitefriars Museum." The dormitory area was an exhibition hall. It showed displays about the building's history as a friary, a private home, and a workhouse. The museum also featured changing art exhibitions. It closed in the early 1990s due to budget cuts.
Today, the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum owns the building. It is not usually open to the public. However, you can sometimes visit it during special Heritage Open Days.
Whitefriars Gate, which is a few hundred meters from the main building, was bought by Ron Morgan in 1973. He used it as the Coventry Toy Museum. The museum closed in 2008 after his death. In 2009, people who set fires damaged the roof and floors in the back of the gate. However, the structure still stands.
Whitefriars Gate on Much Park Street and the cloister wing are the main parts that remain of the 14th-century monastery.
Whitefriars Architecture and Design
When it was founded in 1342, Whitefriars covered about 10 acres in southeast Coventry. The main entrance from the west was on Much Park Street, where an outer gate still stands. The cloister building was built using red sandstone.
The cloister walk that remains today is the eastern part. Originally, there were four such walks forming a continuous square courtyard, called a quadrangle. The remaining cloister is very similar to how it looked when it was first built. The windows originally had no bars and looked out onto a garden or lawn. You can still see marks on one wall where wooden benches and tables were attached in the 1800s when it was a workhouse.
Halfway along the cloister walk, an opening leads to the chapter house vestibule. A vestibule is an entrance hall. There used to be a long entrance arch here. The window in the chapter house was moved from another part of the friary after some demolition. On each side of the vestibule is a room. One was the "friars' warming room" with a fireplace. The other was their parlor, used for meetings and talking. When the building was a workhouse, this parlor served as a chapel.
The dormitory is on the upper floor. This is where the friars would have worked and slept. At the north end, a "night stair" once led down to the church, which is now gone. A blocked-up doorway on the opposite wall led to a room above the vestry. You can still see the foundations of this vestry outside the building.
After John Hales bought Whitefriars in 1544, he added a fireplace and an "Oriel window" to the dormitory. An Oriel window is a type of bay window that projects from the main wall of a building. Queen Elizabeth I was entertained in this room during her visit in the 1560s.
The windows and ceilings in the cloister and chapter house show beautiful medieval stonework. The "rib-vaulted ceiling" is made of stone ribs with stone blocks filling the spaces between them. Rib-vaulting is a type of arched ceiling. You can see decorative carved faces along the cloister where these stone ribs come out from the walls.
The timber roof of the building is believed not to be the original. It dates from the 1500s and was made locally. It was likely brought from another similar building that John Hales also bought after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Whitefriars' Local Impact
Just like the Greyfriars monastery in Coventry, Whitefriars has given its name to local places and businesses. The Whitefriars Ale House, a historic building, was named after the monastery. It is located within the old monastery boundaries. It is next to Whitefriars Lane, which passes through Whitefriars Gate.
The Whitefriars Housing Group, based in Coventry, also took its name from the friary.
See also
- Grade I listed buildings in Coventry
- Grade II* listed buildings in Coventry (Whitefriars Gate)
 | George Robert Carruthers |
 | Patricia Bath |
 | Jan Ernst Matzeliger |
 | Alexander Miles |
