COVENTRY : ENGLAND -WA

*Location:

   Cathedral Church of St.Michael
   Bayley near St.Mary Street
   Coventry, West Midlands (Warwickshire),
     England
   OS Ref. SP 336 790
   LL: N 52.40791, W 1.50803

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City locator maps and gazetteer page (County is wrong; other data are correct.)
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*Player:

   (unknown)

*Contact:

   Coventry Cathedral Office
   1 Hill Top
   Coventry  CV1 5AB
   T: 024/7652 1200   F: 024/7652 1220
   E: information@coventrycathedral.org.uk

*Schedule:

   (unknown)

*Remarks:

   Recast from a ring of 10 (rehung for
   chiming in 1885), to ringing scale;
   hung dead for 60 years; rehung for
   ringing in 1987.  Added semitones are
   flat 6th (ringing) & sharp 9th (fixed),
   both relative to ringing scale of 12
   (chiming scale: sharp 4th & flat 7th).

*Technical data:

   Traditional chime (baton keyboard) of 14 bells
   Pitch of heaviest bell is C# in the middle octave
   Transposition is not applicable
   Keyboard range:     ROPE13/    ----  
   There are two added semitones
   The whole instrument was installed in 1927
     with bells made by Gillett & Johnston
   Year of latest technical information source is 2007

*Links:

The Cathedral page on the Diocesan Website has a picture of St.Michael's porch with the tower in the background (click for larger version).

The new Cathedral Website has a photograph of part of the tower (fourth tallest in England) on the General Information page (under Visitor Information).  The tower is open to visitors in the summer months; but the bells are not mentioned.  The page "Tell Us Your Story" has a photograph of the entire tower, and also shows the ruins prior to the construction of the new cathedral.

A large aerial photo of the old and new buildings can be seen here.

Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem" was commissioned for the dedication of the new Coventry Cathedral, after the old cathedral was burnt out in World War II (only the walls and tower survived).  For those who want to learn more about the history and about the buildings, there is a fine multi-page illustrated article which begins here.

Where this work lies in the sequence of output of the Gillett & Johnston bellfoundry, in this region and in the world.

Ranking among all British Isles chimes by pitch (weight).
Ranking among all British Isles chimes by size (number of bells).
Ranking among all British Isles chimes by year of completion.

Index to all tower bell instruments in England.

*Status:

   This page was built from the database on 24-Dec-07
   based on textual data last updated on 2007/11/26
   and on technical data last updated on 2007/11/26

Explanations of page format and keyboard range are available.

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