The City Annals describe this cross as standing on eight pillars, and it stood for over a hundred years before it became unsafe and part of the upper section had to be taken down in 1537.

In 1541, a former mayor of London, Sir William Hollyes, who had been born in Stoke, Coventry, left £200 in his will for a new cross, and building started the same year.

It was to be built on the same spot as the old cross and on every pinnacle of the lower storey have ‘a beast or fowl holding up a fan’.

[5] The City carried out repairs to the cross in 1608–9, and replaced a figure of Jesus with one of Lady Godiva.

[3] During the Commonwealth, as a result of puritan objections, six sets of royal coats of arms were removed from the cross in December 1650.

In 1688 major restoration work included re-gilding of most of the cross, and it was said at the time that on a sunny day people could hardly bear to look directly at it.

In 1494 Pope Alexander VI set up a commission of enquiry to look into miracles attributed to him and by 1499 his cult was even bigger than that of Thomas Becket.

It was particularly strong in Coventry which supported the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses, and which in 1456 was home to Queen Margaret, wife of Henry VI, who moved the court there as London grew increasingly Yorkist in sympathy.

The modern cross — made by sculptor George Wagstaffe — was finally unveiled in 1976, 100 metres from the original position.