Chairman's Newsletter - February 2025

February 2025
 

Baptistry repair
 

     JOHN REYNTIENS REFITTED the repaired section of the baptistry window in January.  
It was his father , Patrick Reyntiens, who worked with John Piper to create the original window that was damaged some months ago.
     While Mr Reyntiens was at the Cathedral he was interviewed by the Channel 5 film makers for the Coventry Cathedral section of the TV programme “Britain’s Great Cathedrals”.  
     The programme was first broadcast last month and Coventry Cathedral is one of the three cathedrals featured in the second episode.    It is well worth viewing and is available on My5 catchup.              (PHOTO: Martin Green)
 

 

 
THE NATIONAL TRUST has recently taken over the management of Charterhouse – a historic building that is a jewel of Coventry’s heritage with very strong links with Coventry Cathedral.  
     The building was formerly the family home of Col. Sir William Wyley who was a churchwarden and lay canon of the Cathedral.   Wyley was described by Bishop Mervyn Haigh as possibly “the most influential citizen Coventry ever had”.
     A group from the Friends of Coventry Cathedral visited Charterhouse last summer and we were impressed with what we learned and discovered.   The archaeological features uncovered in recent years are well presented to visitors, who can start to imagine what life was like for the Carthusian monks who lived and worked there in silence.  
     The earliest buildings on the site are the remains of the Carthusian monastery that was built on land first acquired for that purpose in 1381.   The name “Charterhouse” is derived from the French “Chartreuse” as the first community of the Order was established in the Chartreuse Mountains.   King Richard II came to Coventry on 6^th September 1385 to lay the foundation stone, and the Priory of St Anne was completed in 1410.   Monastery life continued on the site until the building had to be surrendered to the Crown on 16^th January 1539 following the dissolution of monasteries by King Henry VIII.   Charterhouse was then sold for private use.
     Moving forward to the 18^th/19^th century, the parents of William Wyley were enterprising pharmacists in Coventry with several chemist shops as well as a wholesale business.   William was a qualified chemist and worked in the family business (Wyleys Limited), eventually becoming its chairman and managing director.  
     His parents acquired Charterhouse for their residence in 1848.   (There is a further link with the Cathedral in that for a time they let one half of the building to the Vicar of St Michael’s Church, Rev Sidney H Widdrington.)
     In 1889 Col.Wyley inherited Charterhouse from his parents and he set about to make it a comfortable family home.   Behind panelling installed by previous owners he discovered the medieval and Elizabethan wall paintings that are on view when you visit today.

     He was referred to as Colonel Wyley, because he commanded the 2^nd Volunteer Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment from 1898 to 1908, service for which he was awarded the Victorian Decoration.   That was not his only generous contribution to local and county social life and his contributions were so appreciated that in 1938 he received a knighthood.

     In 1911 Sir William was elected Mayor of Coventry, and in 1914 was appointed Sheriff of Warwickshire followed by appointment as a Deputy Lieutenant of the County.   For some 50 years he was a bank director, firstly of the Coventry Union Bank and then of the Midland Bank.   He was a governor of King Henry VIII School and of Birmingham University.

     Sir William was particularly distinguished in the world of Freemasonry.   In 1916 he was Deputy-Provincial Grand Master of Warwickshire and from 1918 until his death he was Provincial Grand Master.      
     The association with Coventry Cathedral was deep and longstanding.   Sir William served the Cathedral not only as a Churchwarden and Lay Canon, but also as the Cathedral Treasurer.
     In November 1924 some 600 staff and members of the Cathedral congregation gathered in the Baths Assembly Hall to witness a presentation to Col. Wyley on behalf of the Cathedral in appreciation of his 50 years work as the Cathedral Treasurer.  On this occasion the Cathedral Sub-Dean, Canon Holland, paid a glowing tribute to him that was summarised in the following terms by the local newspaper.
     “Colonel Wyley was one who really lived for his church because he loved it.   He served it, not with the scraps of time and energy left over from other things, as some men did, but with all his heart and soul.“
     In 1933 the Cathedral was filled to capacity at the funeral of Col. Wyley’s wife.  She was widely known across city and county as she had often accompanied him on his public engagements.   Later that same year the Cathedral applied for a faculty to restore one of the Cathedral crypts as a chapel in memory of his wife and of other members of the Wyley family.   The restoration work was completed in time for the first service to be held in the Wyley Chapel on 18^th March 1933.
     It is reported that at the 1933 Coventry Diocesan Conference he spoke of his wish to form an organisation of Friends of Coventry Cathedral.   Provost Howard arrived in Coventry that year, and in 1934 the Friends of Coventry Cathedral was formed.   Wyley served as the Honorary Treasurer until his death.

     His funeral took place in the Cathedral and was on a scale and with depths of solemnity that had never previously been seen in Coventry.   The following extract is taken from the lengthy report of the service that appeared in the Coventry Standard:
     The attendance at the funeral on Thursday of Sir William Wyley was the largest within the memory of the majority of Coventry citizens.  
     The service in Coventry Cathedral was attended by his friends and colleagues from almost every walk of life.   The congregation included the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, the Mayor of Coventry, councillors and officers of the city, the chairman of Warwickshire County Council, Alderman Sir William F.S. Dugdale and other country gentlemen, Freemasons from all parts of Warwickshire, and clergy from near and distant parts of the Coventry Diocese.  
     Some idea of the diversity of interests represented may be gauged from the fact that the congregation included Grammar School boys in their ‘teens and old Volunteers of over 90 years of age who had known Sir William many years.
     The cortege passed through crowds of people on its way to the Cathedral, where it was met by the Bishop of Coventry, clergy, and choir at the west gate of the churchyard, and where employees of Wyleys Ltd., formed a Guard of Honour.
     In the course of his address the Bishop of Coventry (Dr Mervyn Haigh) said: “It may well be that Sir William was the most influential citizen Coventry ever had.”

     “He was by conviction and practice a real Christian and a devoted Churchman.   His Christianity was all the more attractive and effective because it was so faithfully expressed in his life and so free from any trace of cant or make believe.  
     This Cathedral Church, of which he was so great a benefactor and which he served so long as Lay Canon, Warden and Treasurer, had a central place in the loyalties and affections of his heart.”

     The Cathedral and the City of Coventry both benefited under the terms of Sir William’s will.   The Charterhouse was given to the City for use as a park and museum.   The Cathedral benefited from a legacy of £7,200 to endow a canonry and from £500 left for the maintenance of the Crypt Chapel that Sir William had restored in memory of his wife.
     These gifts were in addition to sums of £2,800 to the City Council for general purposes, £500 to Ford’s Hospital, £1,000 to Rugby School and £1,000 to King Henry VIII School.
     As the National Trust develops the Charterhouse and encourages its members to visit, I hope that the strong historical links between the Cathedral and Charterhouse through the Wyley family will encourage new visitors to Charterhouse to follow the Wyley Trail to Coventry Cathedral and to the crypt chapel that bears the family name.

           

THE ENTRY PROCESSION at the Sunday morning service paused alongside the Christmas Crib at Epiphany.   Gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh were blessed and the three priests added them to the figures of the three magi in the Christmas tableau.

          
 

The Tapestry Story
 

THE COVENTRY TAPESTRY’S hidden history was revealed to members of the FRIENDS by Prof Louise Campbell.   After her talk I was asked by several members if I could include in the FRIENDS newsletter some of the historic pictures of the weaving of the Cathedral Tapestry.
 

(left) M. Jean Pinton of the weaving firm Pinton Freres in Felletin, France discusses the Graham Sutherland design with his weavers. (middle) The dyes were mixed by hand and colours set by eye before the skeins of wool were plunged into the dye baths.  (right) The weavers worked on the reverse side at the loom, using the original Sutherland painting as a guide to check the colour variations.

When it was completed there was no nearby building big enough to hang the completed tapestry, so the weavers viewed it for the first time when it was spread on the floor of a local gymnasium.

(left) The hanging of the tapestry was supervised by James Park, who ran a fine furnishings business in Coventry.   (middle) A week before the Consecration service the anonymous donor of the tapestry paid for a group of its weavers to fly to Coventry to see the tapestry in situ. (right) On the eve of the Consecration the visiting French weavers attended the Thanksgiving Service held for all people who worked on the Cathedral.   Afterwards they met in the Cathedral porch to be thanked by Provost Williams and Simon Phipps (Industrial Chaplain).

 New kind of Cathedral tour

RICHARD PARKER, one of the Cathedral Guides, writes about an initiative linking the Cathedral Tapestry and the medieval tapestry in St Mary’s Guildhall.
 

     YOU MAY RECENTLY have attended Louise Campbell’s fascinating talk to the Friends about the weaving of the Cathedral tapestry.  
     If that has piqued your curiosity to find out more about this unique artwork, you might like the new kind of tour that the Guildhall and the  Cathedral are jointly offering: A Tale of Two Tapestries.   The first half looks in detail at the Guildhall tapestry, the second half at the Cathedral’s.  The Guildhall tapestry has recently been refurbished and rehung in a specially sealed new cabinet, so this is a  great time to see this “undiscovered” gem.
      The situation of both tapestries is unique:  each was made for the precise spot it now occupies, and was key to the design of the building.  You can see how exactly the design of the St Mary’s tapestry matches the structure of the north window behind it.  
           
     It was made around 1510 in honour of King Henry VI and his consort Margaret of Anjou.   The symbolism of the tapestry is huge: its position shows the power that the mayor and corporation had at that time.  Commentators say that “societies are now reverting to oligarchies”: that the democratic effect is wearing off.   But the power of mayor and guild incited protest from the commons in Coventry in the later 15^th century.  
      The Cathedral tapestry was right from the beginning part of Basil Spence’s vision for the Cathedral, intended to hang behind the high altar.   You cannot avoid superlatives when describing it:  its size, weight,  the challenge of weaving it.  It is a miracle that it exists at all.  It was a genuinely collaborative work of art:  artist, architect and weavers all played vital parts.   We can also look into the preservation of the tapestry as an object.
      What does it mean?   Graham Sutherland recognized that his art was ambiguous, mysterious even to him.   So that gives us a unique opportunity to interpret the images in a way that makes sense to us now.   Come and see what you make of it!
     The Two Tapestries Tour lasts about an hour and costs £10.  Further information is available from the Guildhall.
 

 

 

IAN LITTLE WAS the Cathedral Director of Music in 1976 at the time of the Cathedral Choir’s Christmas television broadcast and also the motor accident about which I wrote in the December Newsletter.  He writes with his own memories of those events.
The Bus Crash.   The first memory of that evening was of the choir singing in the church; it was quite small, certainly in relation to the cathedral, and the sound coming from the boys in particular seemed enormous – probably not heard to best advantage in such restricted surroundings.
     On the return from the church, I was sitting at the back with the 6th form senior choral scholars. Having psalters with them they had decided upon singing some verses as self-entertainment and had chosen Psalm 137. I believe the last verse was usually omitted in services, with just cause as in the King James Version it reads: ‘Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones’. It was around that moment that the bus came off the road.
     My immediate reaction was that we were travelling into a field; but as pictures of the crash have shown the bus was part way up a bank. I came off lightly just briefly losing my glasses which ended up several seats ahead of me, but still in one piece.
     Others were much more seriously affected: Robert had broken ribs, and Frank Barnet lost a tooth. But the boys were amazing – no sense of panic from what I can remember. And the senior boys grabbed their cassocks and spread out along the road waving them at on-coming traffic to alert them to the crash. I have a picture in my mind of Harry Shaw coming to view the damage; I didn’t witness it, but others said he was in tears.
New Faces.   Similarly, I remember the New Faces programme. As it was the first time I had been to a recording studio I was interested in the orchestral musicians seated in place to record their parts of the music. They sat there, cigarettes in hand reading newspapers or the like – clearly underoccupied up to that point.
     The music had to be pre-recorded of course, so the choir had to know their parts really well in order to mime convincingly once the cameras started to roll.  It was something of an effort to keep a straight face during the filming as one adult bass close by, despite us miming, audibly changed the words to something more humorous but which would not have been suitable for broadcast!
  

     THE 80^th ANNIVERSARY of the bombing of Dresden (13^th February) will be marked by an all night vigil of Words and Music in the Frauenkirche, Dresden.  
     Dean John Witcombe will be representing the Cathedral and will lead one of the meditative reflections during the night.   Later he will preach in the Frauenkirche at the service that marks 20 years since the presentation of a Coventry Cross of Nails.   Today that Cross is visible to all in its position on the altar.
     A recent acquisition by the Cathedral that relates to Dresden is this bell from the Frauenkirche in Dresden that was presented to Don Lindon in 2003.   Don was the Cathedral’s Property Manager and was also the Secretary of the Community of the Cross of Nails (CCN).
     Back in 2003 a twenty strong group from Dresden CCN came as guests of the Kenilworth Deanery on a pilgrimage visit.   Amongst other activities during their visit they toured the Cathedral, visited a local mosque and held a number of discussion groups on topical issues.
     The visiting group was led by Stefan Schwarzenberg, the minister at Philippus Lutheran Church, Gorbitz, Dresden pictured below with Don (who is holding the bell).   Stefan presented Don with the bell gift from Dresden’s famous Frauenkirche in appreciation of the arrangements that Don had made for his groups visit, saying -  “We have much to learn from each other about the challenge of building up church life in modern society.”
     The bell was donated to the Cathedral Archives by Don’s daughter.
 

 

AT ITS LAST meeting the Friends Council agreed the following grants to the Cathedral.

Cathedral Choir.   A grant of £10,000 to Coventry Cathedral Choir to assist in the recruitment of lay clerks.

Stained Glass Book.   The FRIENDS sponsored the production of the current book about all of the Cathedral's stained glass that is sold at the Cathedral bookstall.   The commissioning of the Royal College of Art to create the nave windows is still the world’s largest ever single commission for stained glass, and the complexity of the work is fully explained in the book guide.
The FRIENDS have donated to the Cathedral 50 boxes of books which represents £22,000 retail value.