Tuesday 1 September 2015

City Daily Photo Theme Day - Curiosities

Coventry Cathedral Ruins
Restoration work to waterproof the under crofts of the old cathedral
has revealed one particular memorial stone that I'm quite curious about.

To get a birds-eye view of the whole project,
it was up the Cathedral Tower for me today.

1st September, 2015
The flag stone floor on the left has been
lifted to reveal a floor made up of memorial stones, some dating back to
the 18th century.

St Michael's Church was a 14th Century Gothic church that
was later designated a cathedral.  During WWII the Cathedral was bombed
leaving a shell of the building which remains today.

Below is a sequence of photos which show a
little of the archaeological discoveries.

17th July, 2015
You can see in the photo above, work has started.
The original floor hasn't been seen for 75 years.

31st July, 2015
What I hadn't noticed on my first visit was
that memorial stone sticking out from underneath the floor.
When I looked at the photo I took on the 17th July, 
the stone was covered with a piece of wood (middle of photo).


7th August, 2015
You can just see that memorial stone
 on the right hand side of the photo (above).

19th August, 2015
More exposure of the stone over what is now thought to be
a concealed crypt.


Today 

I could see the whole memorial stone
although I struggle to make out all the words.
I think it is for 3 people, the first
being Thomas Allen who died in 1761
at the age of 41.


This is a big story and I have only
touched on my own curiosity of one particular memorial stone.
I will be back later this week with more.
In the meantime, why not visit other members of
City Daily Photo and see what their Curiosities are :).


18 comments:

Merisi said...

Beautiful images and a very interesting story behind!

Tanya Breese said...

how exciting! i would love to be an archeologist!

Lowell said...

It all certainly raises my curiosity! Great pics of a fascinating group of discoveries. Got to wonder how much great stuff is buried right under your feet, right?

Gerald (SK14) said...

What a mystery to unravel - I often wonder about the methodology of archaeology.

William Kendall said...

Fascinating, Lauren!

Jane and Chris said...

There's a lot of interesting finds in the cathedral's past..and now another one!
Jane x

RedPat said...

That is a brilliant discovery!

Cloudia said...

FASCINATING!




ALOHA
ComfortSpiral

Lois said...

Quite an interesting post and perfect for the theme!

Genie -- Paris and Beyond said...

What an amazing discovery to make so many years after the bombing. You have chronicled the story, and I look forward to progress photos as they are available.

Wonderful photos and story of "curiosities."

VP said...

A very interesting story and a perfect post for this theme day!

Julie said...

I do not imagine that the public is allowed anywhere close to this restoration, therefor, you have a wonderful lens! This is the sort of thing that would intruigue me also, Good on your eye for seeing it in the first place. Good on the "friends" of the Cathedral for funding restorations like this.

Stephanie said...

Interesting info and post.

cieldequimper said...

My heart always starts pounding when finds like this are made(I remember how excited I was when a whole medieval cemetery was found next to Quimper cathedral a few years back) thank you so much for this wonderful post!

PerthDailyPhoto said...

On my gosh Lauren.. without doubt the most fascinating post for the theme! Being intensely interested in all things ancient I absolutely loooove discoveries like this, cannot wait to see more.

EG CameraGirl said...

What an interesting discovery! I'm sure there are many more treasures yet to be uncovered there.

Jack said...

LOL, are you sure you shouldn't have become a detective?

Oakland Daily Photo said...

Ah, a mystery soon to be revealed!