Coventry Castle

Coventry Castle once stood in the centre of the city on a raised mound, a motte and bailey fortress built in the early 12th century by Ranulf de Gernon, Earl of Chester. The castle played a part in The Anarchy when Robert Marmion seized the nearby priory and turned it into a stronghold. Marmion died in the fighting, and later King Stephen destroyed the castle after a siege. By the 1180s the site was still used as a fortification, though it was never large. In the 16th century Mary, Queen of Scots was held in Caesar’s Tower, part of the later guildhall complex. The only surviving remains are Caesar’s Tower, rebuilt after wartime bombing and now part of St Mary’s Guildhall. Inside the tower is a vault called the Treasury, and above it a small chamber long labelled the ‘Mary Queen of Scots room’. The guildhall itself was built onto the old castle walls, so the past is embedded in its fabric. Beneath the shopping centre nearby lie further buried foundations of the fortress. The tower’s thick stone walls still show where medieval prisoners once walked. Visitors enter the guildhall courtyard and climb the tower’s spiral stairs to see the Treasury and the disputed chamber. From the top windows there are views over the city centre and the lanes that follow the castle’s old boundaries. The guildhall hosts exhibitions about Coventry’s history, linking the medieval fortress to later centuries. Outside, the shopping centre occupies part of the bailey, while plaques mark where the motte once rose above the streets.