page_title: History of Coventry
section_title: Changing character
hierarchical_section_title: History of Coventry / 20th century / Changing character
caption_attribution_description: A10 - Coventry Council House in Coventry, UK
context_page_description: Coventry grew to become one of the most important cities in England during the Middle Ages due to its booming cloth and textiles trade. The city was noted for its part in the English Civil War, and later became an important industrial city during the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the centre of the British bicycle and later motor industry. The devastating Blitz in 1940 destroyed much of the city centre, and saw its rebuilding during the 1950s and 60s. The motor industry slumped during the 1970s and 80s, and Coventry saw high unemployment. However, in the new millennium the city, along with many others saw significant urban renaissance and in 2017 it was announced that the city had been awarded the title of 2021 UK City of Culture.
context_section_description: Construction of a new Council House to take on the administration duties performed by St. Mary's Hall, and designed to be in keeping with its medieval surroundings, began in 1913 but was delayed during World War I. It was completed by 1917, but was not officially opened until 11 June 1920 by the Duke of York – later to become King George VI.
  As late as the 1920s, Coventry was being described as "The best preserved Medieval City in England". On visiting the city (before the devastation that resulted from the Blitz), the novelist J. B. Priestley wrote: "I knew it was an old place, but I was surprised to find how much of the past, in soaring stone and carved wood, still remained in the city." However, the narrow medieval streets proved ill-suited to modern motor traffic, and during the 1930s many old streets were cleared to make way for wider roads, creating an odd mix of medieval and contemporary streets and buildings.
  The city remained prosperous and largely immune to the economic slump of that decade. During the 1930s the population of Coventry grew by 90,000. There had been yet another boundary extension in 1928 which brought even more districts within the city limits, and extensive new housing estates were rapidly developed, particularly within those districts, though barely fast enough to keep pace with demand. By 1947 Coventry's boundaries enclosed 19,167 acres (77.57 km²).
  Catering to the needs of the city's growing population, the Coventry Corporation Act 1927 reassigned Whitley Common, Hearsall Common, Barras Heath, and Radford Common as recreation grounds, and ended all the remaining traditional commoning rights on waste ground in Coventry, and the freemen of the city, who had been allowed to have up to three animals grazing on these areas since 1833, each received an annual sum of £100 as compensation. The council had already purchased Styvechale Common from the Lords of Styvechale Manor following the First World War to create the War Memorial Park, and in 1927 a monument was built in the park to commemorate all Coventrians that died in that war, and since then later conflicts also.
  Starting in 1931, large sections of the city centre were demolished to make way for a new street plan, more suited to the motor car, with the timber-framed buildings to be replaced by modern structures. Initially, Fleet Street was replaced by Corporation Street, and in 1937 Little Butcher Row and Great Butcher Row gave way to Trinity Street. In 1938, Donald Gibson was appointed as City Architect, with a brief to plan major redevelopment of the city centre.
caption: Coventry Council House with St. Michael's spire behind (photo 2012)
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