Birthplace of the Godiva legend and the motor industry in Britain, mediaeval walled city and modern industrial powerhouse, victim of blitzkreig and a crucible of forgiveness and reconciliation. Coventry has a story to tell like no other British city.

A scattered settlement when Leofric, Earl of Mercia and his wife Godiva founded a church here in the 1040s, by the end of the 14th century Coventry was the fourth biggest city in England. A centre of power to rival its two mighty neighbours, the great castles of Warwick and Kenilworth.

At the city’s heart still stand reminders of that golden age – one of England’s finest mediaeval guildhalls, almshouses and monastic buildings, timber-framed pubs and shops and a clutch of imposing churches. But this is a place whose watchword is change.

With a town wall to rival London’s, trade guilds whose membership stretched right across Europe and royal patronage in the shape of Coventry-held Parliaments, the city’s future at the end of the Middle Ages seemed secure. But its famous wall was to prove its undoing.

Fortified against the king during the English Civil War, Coventry suffered when the monarchy returned to power after the Cromwell years, and lost its role at the centre of national life.

By the end of the 19th century, one staple industry after another – cloth making, ribbon weaving, watch-making and bicycles – had come and gone. But in 1896 the Daimler company began building cars in a disused Coventry cotton mill and laid the foundations for the city’s unparalleled modern expansion.

No other city in Britain was to be so fundamentally altered by the 20th century, the century of change. All of its great themes – rapid industrialisation and technological innovation, immigration, war and peace, the development of social policy and equally rapid de-industrialisation were showcased in microcosm.

Still clinging on to its mediaeval street pattern at the outset, Coventry became the fastest growing urban centre in Britain between the two world wars, the home of new industries like telecommunications and machine tools. Even before the wartime air raids that destroyed much of the old city it was clear that something would have to give.

Coventry emerged from the rubble as an innovative and cosmopolitan place. It was dubbed Britain’s Detroit, drawing in a new generation of immigrants from near and far to work in its booming factories, and it inspired many innovations, from traffic-free shopping centres to comprehensive schools and international town twinning.

But it was worryingly dependent on one staple industry – engineering. And when the crash came the city proved defenceless, losing thousands of jobs almost overnight and acquiring a bleak and dispiriting reputation that it has found hard to live down.

Twenty years on, the picture looks a good deal brighter. Coventry has broadened its industrial base, unemployment is at its lowest for a generation and the city centre is undergoing the biggest development boom since the post-war construction.

Once more, history’s spiral has taken an upward turn and again Coventry feels like a city full of opportunities.