The Restoration of a Medieval Monastery in Coventry

Charterhouse Priory is a Carthusian monastery in Coventry. Carthusian is the name for the religious order of the monks who lived in this monastery. The Carthusian monks were very devout and took a vow of silence. There were only nine of these monasteries built in the UK.

Did you know about this Historic Coventry Trust restoration project?

Many people don’t know there is a 600-year-old monastery in Coventry. Charterhouse Priory is opposite the London Road Cemetery, set quite far back from the main road, on the other side of the River Sherbourne. As such, it isn’t highly visible or easy to find. In addition to this, it’s only been accessible to the public during special open days for the last few years.

What does this 600-year-old monastery in Coventry look like?

Brett and I visited Charterhouse Priory with Igers Coventry & Warwickshire during an Open Day in January 2017, so we knew what it looked like before the restoration project began.

Here are a few images from our visit in 2017.

The wall murals are well-preserved examples of Medieval and Elizabethan art.

My favourite parts of Charterhouse Priory were the stained glass windows and the pretty mosaic floor tiles.

Charterhouse Priory has six very tall chimneys, and it was built using local red sandstone.

The Victorian house was built to the south side of Charterhouse priory. The veranda was added to the front elevation, and the coach house was built within the grounds between the 16th to 18th Century.

Why did this medieval monastery in Coventry need to be restored?

Charterhouse Priory had serious problems with its roof, so it was placed on the Heritage at Risk Register.  As a consequence, the Coventry Preservation Trust formed ten or so years ago to help restore this historical site.

The Coventry Preservation Trust later became the Historic Coventry Trust. In 2018, they successfully secured a £4.3 million from the National Lottery Heritage Grant. These funds will be used to create a 70-acre heritage park in Coventry. Different historical sites, in and around the city centre will all be linked using walking and cycle paths. Charterhouse Priory is a part of this larger project.

Behind the scenes restoration tour

We visited Charterhouse Priory on 18 July with Igers Coventry & Warwickshire. The Historic Coventry Trust very kindly arranged a special access tour of the extensive restoration work on these listed buildings.

We were very excited to have the opportunity to capture some behind the scenes building conservation work on this historical site in Coventry.

Splitlath Building Conservation Ltd gave us a health and safety induction, and some hard hats and high viz. After this, we carefully climbed the scaffolding around the exterior of the building. This took us up to exposed roof timbers so that we could photograph the restoration work.

Brett was much braver than me. He climbed to the top of the scaffolding so that he could capture some unique angles of the exposed beams.

I was pleased to see the colourful stained glass windows that I remembered from our visit in 2017. And, simply couldn’t resist capturing a shot of them through the window. They were managing to peak through all that internal scaffolding and still be quite eye-catching, don’t you think?

[PR Event] Many thanks to Historic Coventry Trust and Igers Coventry and Warwickshire for organising this special access Instameet.

We look forward to seeing how the restoration work by Splitlath Building Conservation Ltd progresses over the coming months.