Day 11 - Sending Myself to Coventry

Northampton – Coventry

Northampton, I discover, is not your ordinary town.

For example, take the distinctly odd but rather pleasing little church I pass as I make my way back to the town's Cold War bus bunker. This, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, is completely circular and reputed to be the best preserved of only four circular churches still in use in England today, and it is one of the oldest.

Then there is Northampton’s most prominent landmark, the National Lift Tower, a vast concrete tower originally built to test lifts. It might not be the most attractive structure in the word, but at 418 feet high it certainly has stature. In 1997 it was granted Grade II listed building status making it the youngest listed building in the UK at that time.

Greyfriars Bus Station... intimidating!

And then there’s that nuclear bomb-proof bus station, looking for all the world like a sort of Gothic alien abattoir which Holywood film location scouts would probably dismiss as being 'just too Gothic'. 

Yet as soon as I make my way in from the street and began to delve inside what I expect to be its inky bleakness, I realise that I may have done it a serious injustice. As bus stations go, this one seems remarkably well-equipped. There are dozens of shiny wooden benches to sit on, so many that I doubt anyone has ever had to stand for a bus. There’s travel information everywhere you look – which buses go from where, what tickets to buy, signs pointing this way and that. Even I can find my way. 

Under the main concourse there are toilets and a cafe with escalators linking them to the waiting areas upstairs. Everything seems logically laid out and is clean and litter free. Waiting passengers are even sealed from the diesel fumes outside by timber-framed sliding doors which might have come from a 1950’s cross-channel steamer. There's even a bus wash. I’m impressed

Not exactly inviting...

I board the 9.45 Stagecoach service to Rugby and explain to the driver that I’m going to Rugby but that I’ll be travelling onwards towards Coventry. “Ah, well,” he says, pondering in a slight West Midlands accent which I take as an indication that I am beginning to move up country, and get slightly excited about it. 

“Now, then…” 

He points me in the direction of a mega gold daysaver thingy which will get me all the way to Coventry and save me at least the price of a pint. So, clutching my ticket and having discretely embraced my new found friend, we set off together into the rain.

Once through the sprawling suburbs of Northampton we were soon back out into open countryside. This is clearly Landed Gentry country, too, with stately sandstone estate walls and groups of achingly attractive estate cottages at regular intervals. It’s all slightly fabulous. I'd foolishly thought this bit of the journey might be flat and boring. It's proving to be anything but.

We pick up where we left off yesterday by crossing and re-crossing the M1 motorway, the West Coast mainline, the Grand Union Canal and the A5. It seems I and the whole world are heading for Birmingham.

We are roughly following the route of the A5, a road built not just to ensure a reliable supply of Banks’s Mild for the nation's capital but to link Parliament and the Crown with what in the 16^th century was its already troublesome colony in Ireland. It wasn't specifically built, of course. It merely evolved in the way that roads did during medieval times and, as a result, was often none too pleasant use. It took Thomas Telford, the great 18^th century engineer, to bring some proper order to the route and I expect to be catching up with some more of his works a little later in my journey.

Our road brings us to Daventry and the vast white sheds of the Daventry International Rail Port. These airship-sized warehouses sandwiched between the M1 and the West Coast mainline provide a central distribution base for dozens of high street stores and supermarkets. Tesco is here, and Mothercare, the Royal Mail, and major transport companies like Eddie Stobart and DHL, principally because from here you can reach around 85% of the UK’s towns and cities in less than four and a half hours. Almost everything you buy in a chain store these days has probably passed through this place at one time or another.

Rugby

A few minutes later we are rolling into Rugby but we don’t seem to be arriving at anything that looks like it might be a bus station. I have a connection to make and its not at all obvious where I make it, so I wander down the front to ask my new Brummie mate if he goes to the bus station.

“Bus station?” he exclaims. He begins chuckling in that West Midlands accent of his. “Oh, no, there’s no bus station in Rugby,” he says. “We’re not posh enough for that!”

Instead, our driver helpfully puts me off into the rain at the right stop for my bus to Coventry. I'm impressed, though. He'd remembered where I was heading even though we hadn't spoken since he’d sold me my ticket over an hour ago, and I must be one of around 100 passengers he’d sold tickets to that morning. That’s some service. 

Just as the rain begins to abate, my next bus rolls up and I climb aboard, damply flashing my mega gold rider at the driver. As I’m settling down, I notice a sign above the platform written in the kind of stick-on lettering much favoured by bus operators down the years, the sort that looks like you might be able to pick it off and rearrange the lettering so that 'used ticket bin' would then read something rude.

Anyway, the sign over the platform said that our bus had a passenger capacity of 28 sitting, 18 standing, 34 sitting, 12 standing, 31 sitting, 12 standing and a wheelchair. I make that 136, which seems a little cramped for a single decker. Bus drivers must have Ph.Ds in Applied Maths to be able to work out the correct seated-to-standing ratios. They are clearly a lot smarter than you might think.

The run into Coventry was every bit as unexpectedly scenic as the trip up from Northampton, through villages of mixed and varied architectural loveliness. Most of these, I suspect, are no longer homes for yokels and village postmasters but for well-heeled commuters from Coventry, and frankly who could blame them. At Wolston, a picturesque and obviously financially-gifted village, a brook babbles picturesquely down the side of the main street past timber-framed houses and lovely Victorian cottages. We are barely six miles from Coventry, yet this feels like the heart of the countryside.

Coventry city centre

Coventry's city centre is surrounded by a doughnut of concrete and tarmac called The Ringway. Much of the city within its compass is relatively new, thanks in large part to the Luftwaffe's massive raid on the city on the evening of 14 November 1940. It was claimed that Hitler attacked Coventry in revenge for the RAF’s bombing of Munich six days earlier, and chose Coventry simply because the Baedeker international travel guide described this quaint medieval city as one of the finest in all Europe, so the punishment would be more keenly felt and the firestorm so much more intense.

Germans firebombs caused colossal damage to the city centre and to Coventry's 14^th century cathedral, which along with much of the rest of the city centre was reduced to a charred shell. Around three-quarters of the city's factories, many of them making munitions, aircraft and aero-engines for Britain’s war effort, were also destroyed and more than 4,000 houses. Some 800 people died that night, with thousands more injured and homeless. 

To cheer myself up, I drop off my bag and make my way back through Coventy's damp streets to the splendid Coventry Transport Museum which is situated slap bang in the middle of the city centre. Its central location gives you some indication of the historic importance of the motor industry in these parts; indeed, Coventry is recognised as the birthplace of the British motor car. This was the home of Daimler, Jaguar, Chrysler, Rover, Humber and many others, and is still home to a factory producing many of London's black cabs. 

Coventry Transport Museum

It was also the home of Maudsley Motors, one of whom's stately buses – a Maudsley Marathon Mk 2 coach - now graces the ground floor of the museum, alongside a 1953 Daimler double decker and the 1973 open top Daimler Fleetline which was decked out in the colours of Coventry City in celebration of the teams's 1987 FA Cup win.

These and hundreds of other exhibits ensure that the museum is definitely the one bright spot on an otherwise grey day.

There is a lot of bland concrete in Coventry's 1960’s city centre, but there are joyful fragments of the old city still visible here and there and I explore some of them on my way to my hotel for the night. They give you a sense of how beautiful Coventry must have been before that terrible night and I retire to bed a little sad. 

Or is it just the effect of all that concrete? We have to face it. Coventry may have many distinctions, such as being the furthest of any city in the UK from the sea - but it certainly doesn’t look its best in the rain…

NEXT: Coventry to Birmingham - where I boldly enter the great 'Centre of Britain' controversy but find myself a penny short for my bus ride to Birmingham

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