The perfect place for a cream tea.....sitting in the courtyard of the historic St Mary's Guildhall, Coventry.
The building was built in the Medieval style between 1340 and 1342 and much altered and extended in 1460. The guildhall originally served as the headquarters of the merchant guild of St Mary.
St. Mary's Hall has been famous for many other things in its time, perhaps one of the more interesting being that Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned there for three months from November 1569 under the orders of Queen Elizabeth I.
It is most likely that she and her small entourage stayed in the much larger Mayoress's Parlour and not as a prisoner but there for her own safety.
Having previously been held at Tutbury, Mary was hurried to Coventry's walled and heavily defended city before a band of northerners could seize her.
A letter that Queen Elizabeth I wrote to the people of Coventry still exists and a copy may be seen in the Guildhall.
