Coventry Cathedral

14 November, 1940. Night had fallen. Suddenly the sky above Coventry was filled with German aeroplanes, which dropped bombs on the city for over ten hours.

One of the many buildings destroyed in the Luftwaffe raid that night was the 14th-century cathedral, left in smouldering ruins.

Amid the aftermath the Bishop of Coventry decided to build a new cathedral – it was voted the nation’s favourite 20th-century building in the 1990s – and to leave the medieval ruins as a war memorial. And in 1963 the composer Benjamin Britten, a pacifist, was commissioned to write a piece for the consecration.

Dedicated to four of Britten’s friends who had served in the Second World War, the War Requiem juxtaposes war poetry by Wilfred Owen with the Catholic Requiem Mass.

‘The whole thing is a kind of reparation’, Britten said of his masterpiece. ‘I hope it’ll make people think a bit.’  

Where is it: Priory Street, Coventry
How to get there: Coventry Station is a 5-minute walk
What to see: Take a guided tour or climb the tower