Want the best Coventry and Warwickshire news delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up here! Sign up here! Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

So, you think Coventry has no culture?

You are absolutely wrong.

Our city is a place where dreams are made and great inventions crafted - and if you don't believe us, you soon will.

Below are 20 of the best things Cov has given the world.

Which do you rank highest?

1. Phrases/language

The only man to spy on Lady Godiva as she rode naked through Coventry was known as Peeping Tom and today that's a common English word for a voyeur.

Other sayings originating in the city include 'sent to Coventry', which is said to refer to the hostile reception given to Royalist prisoners who were captured during the Civil War and imprisoned in Coventry, a Parliamentarian stronghold.

According to some accounts, 'true blue' is also a Coventry phrase because of the high-quality blue cloth that was made in the city and retained its dye when washed - this certainly accounts for the similar local saying 'as true as Coventry blue.'

2. Music

2 Tone music originated in Coventry and included local bands The Selecter and The Specials. Pop producer Pete Waterman is from Coventry as are Hazel O'Connor, Vince Hill, Frank Ifield, King, The Primitives and The Enemy.

3. Lady Godiva

Coventry is the setting for the story of the noblewoman who rode naked through the streets in protest against taxes.

The story is remembered in the city's Godiva Clock at Broadgate and Coventry resident Pru Porretta has adopted the role of Lady Godiva as the city’s unofficial ambassador.

4. Textiles/weaving

Coventry was once known for its textiles industry, particularly the weaving of silk ribbons.

Courtaulds opened a silk works in Foleshill in 1904, and in 1941 became the first British firm to produce nylon yarn.

5. Coventry Ring Road

(Image: Duncan Gibbons)

One of the earliest ring roads in the UK (the first was the A5058 Queens Drive in Liverpool built between 1903-1927) and one of the most unusual, the A4053 Coventry Ring Road was conceived as part of plans to regenerate the city centre after much of it was destroyed during the Second World War.

It was built between 1962 and 1974.

6. Coventry Precinct

After WW2, rebuilding plans for Coventry city centre included what's widely believed to be Europe's first pedestrianised precinct.

City architect Donald Gibson drew up the pioneering scheme, which was approved by the city council in 1941.

The Upper Precinct was completed in 1955 and the Lower Precinct (pictured) completed in 1958.

7. Alcohol-free Zone

The UK’s first street drinking ban was put into place in Coventry in 1988, declaring Coventry city centre an alcohol-free zone.

It proved so successful that it was extended to the whole of Coventry.

Many other councils soon followed suit.

8. First all-seater football stadium

In 1981, the former home ground of Coventry City Football Club at Highfield Road Stadium became the first all-seater stadium in the English leagues (Pittodrie Stadium in Aberdeen was the first in the whole of the UK).

But Leeds United fans ripped out hundreds of seats just months later after losing a First Division game to Coventry 4-0.

The stadium became all-seater once again in 1994 when top division clubs were required to have all-seater stadiums following the Hillsborough Disaster of 1989.

9. The bicycle

The penny-farthing was invented by James Starley, the father of the bicycle industry.

Penny-farthings were first turned out, from 1871 onwards, by the Starley workforce in a factory opposite what is now Little Park Street police station, in Coventry city centre.

This was Britain's first cycle factory.

The Rudge-Whitworth works on the site of what is now the Skydome claimed to be the largest bicycle and tricycle manufacturer in the world. Cycles and later motorcycles were made there from 1889 until 1939.

10. Jaguar cars

Jaguar - a brand of Jaguar Land Rover, a British car manufacturer with its HQ in Coventry - made its name with a series of eye-catching sports cars. These included the XK 120 of 1949, developed into the XK 140 and XK 150, and the E Type - assembled in Coventry and produced between 1961 and 1974.

Today’s Jaguars are designed in Whitley and Gaydon and manufactured in Solihull and Castle Bromwich, Birmingham.

11. Watchmaking

Coventry was once a well-known centre of clock and watch manufacturing.

It began in the late 17th century and by the 18th century, Coventry was one of three main UK centres for watchmaking alongside London and Liverpool.

It was said to have become the dominant city by the first half of the 19th century.

In 1851, 2,000 people were employed in the watch trade and in 1874, Whites directory listed 130 watch manufacturers in the Butts, Spon End, Chapelfields and Earlsdon.

Spon Street was at the centre of the trade - the workshops are long gone, but Nos 26-28 Spon Street are the former offices of Rotherhams, one of the main manufacturers. Charles Dickens visited the firm in 1858 and was presented with a gold watch.

The boom period for watchmaking was 1860 to 1890. Cheaper mass-produced watches from overseas led to the decline of the industry.

12. Actors

Among the stars of stage and screen who were born in Coventry are Billie Whitelaw, Ellen Terry, Nigel Hawthorne, Clive Owen and Sinead Matthews. Film composer Clint Mansell (former lead singer and guitarist of Pop Will Eat Itself) and director Debbie Isitt are also from Coventry.

In other areas of the arts, the city produced poet Philip Larkin and authors Graham Joyce, Lee Child and Mark Barrowcliffe, while Frank Skinner (who is from West Bromwich) did his masters degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, Coventry.

13. The jet engine

Born in a terraced house in Newcombe Road, Earlsdon, in 1907, Frank Whittle is credited with inventing the jet engine. He was an RAF pilot and engineering genius and came up with the idea of the turbojet engine which he patented in 1930, with the prototype created in 1937.

He is commemorated with the Whittle Arch monument and statue outside Coventry Transport Museum and a plaque on the house where he grew up, while a local school is named after him with a replica of his engine (which he donated) in its reception area.

14. First twin city (Volgograd)

Coventry was the first city in the world to twin with another.

And we’ve gone on to twin with another 26 towns or cities, more than anyone else.

It was in 1944 that Coventry started a trend that would spread across Europe and the rest of the world.

We twinned with the Russian city of Volgograd (then Stalingrad) as one war-ravaged city supporting another.

Now, there are 40,000 twin towns across Europe and more than 2,000 in the UK alone.

And Coventry has amassed more than its fair share with a staggering 26 twin towns to its name, from those with obvious shared histories such as the German cities of Dresden and Kiel, to the less obvious, such as Jinan in China and Kingston in Jamaica.

15. The Coventry Carol

A Christmas song dating from the 15th century, the Coventry Carol has its origins in the old ‘mystery plays’ - medieval dramas based on the Bible. The carol was traditionally performed in Coventry - on the steps of the old cathedral - as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors.

The play depicts the Christmas story from chapter two in the Gospel of Matthew and the carol itself is a haunting lullaby sung by three women of Bethlehem after Herod orders all male infants under the age of two to be killed. It’s a lament by the mothers of the doomed children.

The play itself was performed in summer but the story has a Christmas theme and so the carol is regarded as a festive song. Many performers have recorded the song, including Sting, Charlotte Church, Annie Lennox, Christine McVie, Suzanne Vega, Tori Amos, Elaine Paige, Joan Baez, Alison Moyet and John Denver.

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

16. First purpose-built civic theatre

The Belgrade Theatre was the first civic theatre to be built in Britain after the Second World War and was a symbol of optimism and the rebirth of cultural life as much as a place of entertainment.

It was named in thanks for a gift of timber from Belgrade, which was used to build the auditorium. Both cities had been ravaged by war and became officially twinned in 1957.

Belgrade was then capital of Yugoslavia and is now capital of Serbia.

The theatre first opened in 1958 and reopened in 2007 after a £12million redevelopment.

17. Mo Mowlam

Labour politician Mo Mowlam was born in Watford but grew up in Coventry and went to Coundon Court School, then one of the country’s first comprehensives. She was awarded the Freedom of the City in 1999.

As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland - the first woman to hold the post - she helped restore an IRA ceasefire and saw the signing of the historic Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998.

She developed a brain tumour and died in 2005 at the age of 55.

18. Sports heroes

Among those who are part of Coventry’s contribution to the world of sport are cricketer Ian Bell, rugby player Neil Back, sprinter Marlon Devonish, runner David Moorcroft and motorcycle racer Cal Crutchlow.

19. Coventry's own planet

A minor planet (or asteroid) was named 3009 Coventry after it was discovered in September 1973 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (CrAO) in Nauchny, near Bakhchysarai, Ukraine. It lies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Chernykh knew of Coventry because it is twinned to Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad.

20. London taxis

(Image: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire)

Production of black cabs started in Coventry once more in September 2013.

LTC - the London Taxi Company - went into administration in 2012 and was bought by Chinese firm Geely.

More than 130,000 black cabs had been made at LTC’s Holyhead Road factory over the past 60 years. The company had been building black cabs in Coventry since 1919.

Download our all-new mobile app to get the latest news, sport and what's on. Click here for iPhone and here for Android

Looking for an older story? Search our archives

Search for jobs, motors and property, or place an advert or family notice here.