Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Cathedral of St Michael

Cathedral of St Michael, Priory Street, Coventry

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1342941
Date first listed:: 28-Mar-1988
List Entry Name:: Cathedral of St Michael
Statutory Address:: Cathedral of St Michael, Priory Street, Coventry

User submitted image — Uploaded by Peter Manning This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2000-07-03
Reference:: IOE01/02589/35
Rights:: © Mr Edward Alvey. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1342941
Date first listed:: 28-Mar-1988
List Entry Name:: Cathedral of St Michael
Statutory Address 1:: Cathedral of St Michael, Priory Street, Coventry

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Cathedral of St Michael, Priory Street, Coventry

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Coventry (Metropolitan Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SP 33627 79065

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 13 July 2022 to remove superfluous source details and reformat the text to current standards

SP 3379 SE 833/2/411

COVENTRY Priory Street Cathedral of St Michael GV. I Cathedral. 1951-62. Designed by Sir Basil Spence. Red sandstone ashlar with green slate cladding to chapels; concrete roof. Lofty space of seven bays with nave; full height aisles; no clerestorey; full height Lady Chapel and Western (liturgical) porch; circular chapels to north-west (lit) and south-east (lit). Cathedral aligns east-west. Built at right angles to the ruins of the old cathedral, formerly Parish Church (q.v.) and attached to its north-east corner. Nave and chancel walls of new cathedral canted outwards in vertical bands, producing a 'saw-toothed' plan, with vertical 4-light stained glass windows facing north-west (lit) and south-west (lit).

Porch with tall circular sandstone piers and three flat topped concrete vaults. Baptistry to south west (lit) with convex wall, partly solid and partly glazed with closely spaced vertical stone mullions; Epstein's sculpture of St.Michael and Lucifer attached to baptistry wall by the porch. Chapel of Christ the Servant to south-east (lit) circular with closely spaced vertical mullions. Chapel of Unity to north-west (lit) polygonal with largely solid walls of riven slate, and projecting fins tapering upwards, with vertical strip glazing to ends. East wall blind. West wall fully glazed, from floor to ceiling and wall to wall; nineteen lights divided into eight horizontal bands. Bronze glazing bars, plate glass with engraved figures of saints and angels by John Hutton.

Low roof, crowned by openwork metal fleche crowned by cross designed by sculptor Geoffrey Clarke. Interior with cruciform reinforced concrete piers, tapering to the base and supporting concrete 'ribbed' canopy with panels of timber slats between ribs. This has the appearance of a vault but is structurally and visually separate from the walls.

Interior contains fitments by the most prominent British artists and designers of the period. These include font and choir stalls designed by Spence himself, monumental inscriptions to walls and floor by Ralph Beyer, stained glass to Baptistry by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens, to aisle walls by Lawrence Lee, Geoffrey Clarke and Keith New, to Lady Chapel by Einar Forseth, to Chapel of Unity by Margaret Traherne; pulpit and lectern by Spence, the latter with an eagle book rest by Elizabeth Frink, in bronze: tapestry to east wall of Lady Chapel, dominating the Cathedral,by Graham Sutherland, altar cross and crown of thorns by Geoffrey Clarke, large ceramic candlesticks by Hans Coper, chairs by Russell, Hodgson, and Leigh: mosaics by Einar Forseth, ceramic panels by Steven Sykes, etc. Coventry Cathedral was one of the most important architectural commissions of its date in Britain, and was built following an architectural competition in 1951. The scheme was also notable in its period for the degree to which the bomb damaged shell of the Medieval church of St.Michael was preserved.

Listing NGR: SP3362879067

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 218629
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Wedgwood, A, The Buildings of England: Warwickshire, (1966), 249-259
Spence, B, Phoenix at Coventry, (1962)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.