Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/411

Rh St. Michael's looks the oldest, for the court-plaster and rouge of modern renovation have not smoothed the deep wrinkles and crow-feet tracks of age in its face. The view and study of these two remarkable structures will well repay a visit to Coventry if there were no other specimens of ancient architecture and history to be seen there. But there are other buildings and associations of peculiar interest that enrich the town.

St. Mary's Hall is one of the most unique and impressive buildings in England. Indeed. I do not remember one which presents such an external aspect of age. This shows you all its years at a glance. Other buildings equally old in various towns have been faced and refaced, so that the outside walls are comparatively smooth and trim, having had all their wrinkles ironed out of them by the hand of renovation. All amateurs of antiquity owe Coventry for much enjoyment in its thus preserving such venerable buildings unaltered, with all their centuries eaten into their faces. This St. Mary's Hall is a jewel of this order; as much so as the finger-ring of a Roman knight dug up in the battle field of Canne. Inside and out it is covered with the hoary rime of the history of trade guilds, city councils, royal visitations. Lady Godiva's pageantry, knightly romance, and other heroics and fantasies of bygone times. On entering the massive archway through those time-proof