Day 14. My studio was closed to the public, which gave me the whole day to make further investigations through the city. I have been building a sense of the movement of the river Sherbourne through the underground culverts of the city. There are many place names that have come through from Coventry’s early history and are still present on the contemporary city map, I am particularly interested in the sites that directly refer to the once natural route of the river. The bus station is at Pool Meadow, some of the old wells exist near Jordan Well, the river still flows out from under the city at Gosford gate, just outside the site of the old city wall, which is marked on the forecourt of the tyre and exhaust centre in paving of a similar colour to the original medieval wall.
Armed with my enlarged map of the city centre I set off to follow the river, to build a sense of where it was flowing under me by using old and new maps and primarily the lie of the land itself, walking with a sense of the river basin, the ‘fall’ of the land, and asking myself, where would the river flow through this city if it were still above ground?
I began at the site of the old Gosford Gate where the river still emerges from its journey under the city and began to walk against the flow of the underground water. I found my way along remnants of the old wall, under the ring road, past the bingo hall, the bus station, the back of a building site behind the Coventry Cross pub where the river is briefly visible, beginning again outside the Kebab shop on the Bruges which bridges the river, crossing the road feeling the river under me, here I had to take a slight diversion round the multi-story car park instead of through it and into Corporation Street, at the end of the street I was attracted by the Elizabethan buildings that still remain and are inhabited, in Spon Street and happily followed the diversion away from the river. . Spon Street runs parallel to the once natural river bed, it was once situated outside the city walls and in relationship to the river above its floodplain.
There has been a butcher shop on Spon Street in the same building, for well over a hundred years, the current butcher has been in residence for over twenty, I asked him if he knew anything about the current course of the river near his shop, he sent me in the direction of the empty Woolworths, a car park and through the ground floor of New Look. I completed the cross city journey at the edge of the Ikea car park, here the river emerges from under the ring road and is briefly visible before it dives under the city. Before the water was visible, I could feel it in the air and sense the drop in temperature, I watched the water through the railings of the culvert, as it followed its concrete container that forced it sideways at an angle.
Later in the day, I repeated the journey with a hazel dowsing rod, feeling the river through it, travelling below me, I walked the invisible river once more along roads and through buildings. I passed people in the city going about their business with the river beneath them hidden from view.