Coventry Cathedral

St Mary's Priory

St Michael's Cathedral

First structure

Present structure

Modern art

• Jacob Epstein’s St Michael’s Victory over the Devil, a monumental bronze sculpture affixed to the exterior of the east wall of the cathedral. It depicts the Archangel Michael triumphant over a bound Satan, symbolising the victory of good over evil in the post-war rebuilding of Coventry. The work stands over 7m high, with Michael’s wings spanning the same width. Completed shortly before Epstein’s death in 1959, the sculpture was unveiled at the cathedral’s consecration in 1962.
• A huge tapestry titled Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph, designed by Graham Sutherland. At 23 metres tall and 12 metres wide, it was once thought to be the world's largest tapestry, made in one single piece. Located on the liturgical east wall of the Lady Chapel, it dominates the view from the entrance of the nave. The tapestry depicts the risen Christ in the glory of God in Heaven within a mandorla, surrounded by symbols of the four Evangelists. Its design and creation was an immense technical challenge for Sutherland. Commissioned in 1951 the design and manufacture was developed over the course of 10 years and only installed in 1962 ahead of the cathedral's consecration. It was woven by hand in Aubusson in France on a 500-year-old loom made from two tree trunks from one continuous piece of wool.
• The Baptistry window designed by John Piper, who as an official war artist had painted the ruins of the old cathedral in 1940. Likened to a tapering curtain of coloured light, this monumental floor-to-ceiling window, 21.9m high and 18m wide, consists of 198 individual stained glass panes set into a convex concrete chequerboard frame designed by Spence. Piper worked in collaboration with glassmaker Patrick Reyntiens, with whom he would go on to forge a near 40 year partnership. To create unity on such a scale, Piper used dazzling colour and individual abstract patterns that are unique to each panel and combine to give the overall impression of a dazzling yellow sunburst to the centre. The primarily blue glass above and green below creates a scene reminiscent of sunrise, an appropriate metaphor for both the window's setting in the baptistry and the new cathedral itself, rising from the ruins of the old. The window was commissioned from Piper and Reyntiens by the Coventry Cathedral Reconstruction Committee in 1955 and manufactured over the course of three years from 1958 to 1961.
• Ten stained glass windows in the nave, by Lawrence Lee, Keith New and Geoffrey Clarke, which are angled to face towards the altar and away from the congregation. Spence's concept for these windows was that opposite pairs would represent a pattern of growth from birth to old age, culminating in heavenly glory nearest the altar—one side representing Human, the other side, the Divine. The commission was led by Lee, who enlisted New and Clarke, two recent graduates from the Royal College of Art, as collaborators rather than assistants. The three artists worked individually on three windows each and together on the tenth. Treating the windows as pairs, New designed the green windows representing youth, Lee worked on the red and gold windows symbolising early manhood, and Clarke designed the purple windows depicting wisdom and old age.
• The Great West Window known as the Screen of Saints and Angels, depicting 66 saints and angels engraved directly into the individual glass panes in an expressionist style by John Hutton. Located at the entrance of the new cathedral It acts as both a wall and a window, linking the old cathedral with the new, ensuring that the ruins are visible from inside and providing a reminder of the path from destruction to resurrection. A pane of the Hutton window, depicting The Angel with the Eternal Gospel, was smashed during a burglary in January 2020.
• Eight massive stone panels set into the walls of the nave, known as the Tablets of the Word, carved in-situ by the émigré German letter carver Ralph Beyer. Their deliberately irregular lettering was inspired by early Christian inscriptions, especially as seen in Roman crypts. Beyer also carved the foundation stone, the baptismal font and the greeting set into the floor of the nave.
• Three sculptures in bronze by Geoffrey Clarke: The High Altar Cross cast in an organic form reminiscent of a tree or bird, which to its centre holds the Cross of Nails, made from three medieval roof nails salvaged from the rubble of the old Cathedral after its destruction, from which Clarke took inspiration for its gnarled form; the bronze Crown of Thorns sculpture that hangs centrally above the altar in the Chapel of Christ the Servant, and; the bronze winged cross sculpture that crowns the 26 metre flèche that climbs above the roof.
• The lectern bookrest in the form of an eagle, cast in bronze by the sculptor Elisabeth Frink, Frink's first major commission, she modelled the eagle directly in plaster and, using ordinary kindling wood, gave the effect of feathers. The result is an entirely original take on a traditional piece of liturgical furniture.
• An emotive sculpture of the Mater Dolorosa, made in 1970 by John Bridgeman in the Lady Chapel.
• The Swedish windows located in the Lady Chapel, a gift of the people of Sweden, made by Einar Forseth and installed in 1961. Forseth used traditional stained glass techniques in an accessible, Modernist style. Forseth also designed the mosaic floor in the Chapel of Unity.
• A Mosaic in the Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane by Steven Sykes, depicting the Angel of Agony that is first seen from outside the chapel through a wrought-iron screen in the from of the Crown of Thorns, designed by Spence himself.
• Margaret Traherne’s stained-glass windows in the Chapel of Unity. Executed in the dalle-de-verre technique, these narrow slits of coloured glass transform sunlight into vibrant hues that wash across the chapel’s interior concrete surfaces, creating a contemplative, spiritual atmosphere.