Ford's Hospital, Coventry: 16th-century Gem
Ford's Hospital is considered one of the finest examples of 16th-century domestic architecture in Britain.
Traditionally known as Grey Friars Hospital, it is a Grade 1 listed 16th half-timbered almshouse in Greyfriars Lane, Coventry.
Fords Hospital was founded by the merchant William Ford in 1509 to provide accommodation for six elderly people: five men and one woman.
'Hospital' in this case has a different meaning to our modern concept of a place for healing illness and injury.
Think of Ford's Hospital as the equivalent of subsidised housing for elderly people.
The building houses a narrow courtyard measuring just 11.9 m by 3.7 m, pictured above.
It has been considered by historians and writers to be a particularly fine example of English domestic architecture of the period.
In 1517, following Ford's death, the endowment was extended to allow six places for couples to live together.
In 1529, it was extended further to allow five more couples to stay.
According to W. Hickling, a Coventry historian writing in 1846, by then it was serving forty women, each of whom received an allowance of three shillings and six pence per week.
During the Coventry Blitz, the building was hit by German bombing, like many other parts of the city.
A bomb dropped on 14 October 1940 killed the warden, a nurse and six residents.
Though the building sustained damage, it was not beyond repair.
The restoration took 13 years and used original timber and brick salvaged from the bombed-out site.
The Hospital was altered to create large, fully self-contained apartments.
It was restored with original timbers between 1951 and 1953.
Today, the building is located on the site of a chapel within Greyfriars Friary.
In 1940, John Bailey Shelton, a Coventry archaeologist discovered encaustic tiles typical of those found in a chapel.
In 2006, it was used as a location for the episode of Doctor Who called The Shakespeare Code.
In attempting to reconstruct the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare scholars have used Ford's Hospital to understand Elizabethan doorways.
Since the Hospital is in use as a residence the interior is only open to the public for the annual Heritage Open Days events.
However, you can check out the interior, the address is: Greyfriars Lane, Coventry, West Midlands, England, CV1 2GY.
Someone who recently visited the historic building said: “Another building that I pass almost every time I walk into the city centre so it was nice to see that it was open at the weekend.
”It’s small inside but was used as a resting place for pilgrims as they traveled to what was back then a very religious destination.
”There was also a paper cutting where they had filmed a scene for Dr Who in a genuine medieval courtyard.”
If viewing from the outside, unfortunately a stone wall surrounds the property and blocks views of the gardens and the rear of the building.
It can be found on the east side of Greyfriars Lane, north of New Union Street.
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