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Published: January 22nd 2018
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The Other Half was keen to lose the Christmas pounds. Weight and financially. As a former keen attendee of the gym world, she has now reached the lack of motivation after work phase of life. The answer? Her very own spinning bike. A find myself driving down the rain soaked A38, heading to an industrial estate on the outskirts of England' second city. The rain lashed down, as we cut across the motorway by East Midlands Airport. The current road "improvements" have turned the area into something akin to a muddy battlefield. We turned on to the A38 by the huge Toyota plant on the far side of derby. It remains to be seen whether the Japanese car giant sees this as a major centre for their European operation post Brexit. There was little of note to see as we headed south - the giant brewing complex at Burton and lots of direction signs to the Football Association complex at St Georges Park – but the rain had abated, as I parked up.
Lichfield is a tiny place in modern day Britain and boasts a population of only 30,000 or so. It is however a city. In the
sixteenth century, Henry VIII bestowed the city status on 6 English towns which housed a diocesan Cathedral including Lichfield. Meanwhile, it took the big industrial beast down the road until 1889 to join the club based mainly on population growth. As is my way, I did a bit of research on the place before arrival. The founding of Lichfield dates back a long time before Henry granted his city award. One of the suggestions as to where the name is derived from arrives at the “field of the dead”, although by all accounts there are no hard facts to back up this theory. Lichfield seemed like a green sort of place. Trees and open spaces prevailed. We wandered down from the car passing the Cathedral on our left and the expanse of Beacon Park was to our right. The building at the park entrance is inscribed with "Free Library & Museum". However the other thing that caught your eye was the statue of an armed sailor, standing proud on a plinth near the front door. His hat bears the words "HMS Powerful". His rifle has taken a bit of a battering and is now more akin to a sawn off
Commander Robert Smith
.....Captain of the Titanic shotgun. I pondered the connection between the town and the ship in question, but apparently none exists. The statue was moved here from York in 1905. It was a piece by local stonemason, Robert Bridgeman. It seems they like a good statue in Lichfield and closer inspection of Beacon Park reveals he has company. Edward VII stands tall, facing out towards the Cathedral in his full ceremonial robes. He was unveiled in 1908. A close neighbour is Erasmus Darwin - relation of Charles and member of the Lunar Society. His house is nearby, but more of that later. A fine looking fountain stands in the middle of the park - a cherub playing a bugle. The most puzzling piece is that of Commander Robert Smith. In full uniform, he gazes of from the near the tennis courts. Smith was Captain of the ill-fated Titanic. Why was he here, miles from the sea? Was he born in Lichfield? It transpires he hails from Stoke and rumours once circulated that they didn't fancy having him on their patch. This is a load of by all accounts and it seems that it was just a convenient place for him to stand, being vaguely
on the route between Liverpool and London. In a twist of history linked by misfortune by ice, Smith was sculpted ironically by the widow of Robert Scott - he of the Antarctic fame. Lichfield is the "city of sculpture". I have just found a website of the same name, which complete with downloadable map gives you a guided tour of the town by statue. It seems we had only scratched the surface in Beacon Park.
We crossed the road to the Garden of Remembrance. The entrance to the 1919 War Memorial is guarded by two 18th century lions. The garden is overlooked, as are most things in Lichfield, by the Cathedral. The construction of the Cathedral was overseen by Bishop Roger de Clinton, who ensured that the building and its surrounding area known as Cathedral Close became a stronghold against enemy attack. The Minster Pool by the War Memorial guards the southern flank. The work on the current format of the Cathedral began in 1195, after the return of the bishop’s seat to Lichfield from an away game in Chester. It took 150 years to complete. The city prospered, but turned out not to be a great
place to be in the 16th and 17th centuries. Black Death took a third of the population in the 1590s. Edward Wightman became the last person to be burnt at the stake in public in England in Lichfield’s Market Place on 11 April 1612. The English Civil War brought further problems for Lichfield in the 1640s. The city was split in loyalty. The allegiances to King Charles I and his Royalists were strong among the Church hierarchy, but the ordinary man in the street favoured the Parliamentarians or "Roundheads". A key transport hub - remember this was before the M6 - the two sides took it in turn to have control of the city. Meanwhile, the glorious Cathedral took a bit of a battering and it took a long time for it to be restored. Today, I would rank it with Wells as a seriously underestimated and under-visited place on the tourist routes in England. I am often plagued by the scaffolding curse with these historic buildings, but today is was more of a seasonal problem. There seemed to be some sort of Christmas tree recycling for church funds going on at the entrance. Alas, a series of irritating white
vans were parked on the forecourt! I sought some different angles to photograph the building.
Cathedral Close was pretty much deserted. There seemed to be few visitors around. The main city streets leading from the Cathedral area past the Lichfield Speakers Corner were also quiet. Christmas had taken a toll on the spending power. The accents were all very Brummie - older folk, who had perhaps moved here looking for the West Midlands they once knew. The city centre is a mix of georgian and restored timber buildings from Tudor times. Lichfield prospered for many years as a sort of service station on the coaching routes between London and Chester. It became the wealthiest place in Staffordshire and was equipped with all mod cons such as an underground sewerage system, paved streets and gas powered street lighting. The railways bypassed the town in favour of the industrial cities nearby and today, whilst it still has that air of prosperity, there is an element of being in a bit of a time bubble. I thought it was a time bubble that would suit me just fine as a place to live.
Lichfield has produced a
number of celebrated sons, but they have mainly not chosen to remain. Dr Samuel Johnson, the writer and scholar, produced a work that had enormous impact on the English language. He was born at his parents book shop near the Market Place in 1709. He went on to write the Diary of the English Language - a work that took him 9 years to complete when published in 1755 and described as one of the more important English literary pieces. The dictionary wasn't the first, but was pretty much the go to publication until the arrival of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928. His birthplace is now a museum. A statue of the man stares back at the museum from the Market Place. Johnson's biographer, James Boswell, shares a statue on the far side of the market. A cold and draughty market was ongoing today. Burning at the stake wasn't on the agenda today.
The decline in the fortunes of Lichfield were in many ways the saving of the city. The main industrial centres nearby of Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton and the absence of heavy industry in the area meant that Lichfield wasn't on the radar of
roaming aircraft in World War 2. A good section of the city’s impressive Georgian architecture is still standing. We walked past one such example in Erasmus Darwin's residence on. the way back to the car. We headed for Birmingham to spend the Christmas pennies of the Other Half on her spinning bike. The roar of the M6 traffic could be heard in the distance, as we made our way out of a bleak industrial estate towards Spaghetti Junction. There would be no footie match as an appendix today. The closest I would get was watching frustrated Posh fans queuing to get off the motorway - I wonder if they still think the Aston Expressway has anything to do with fast moving traffic?
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Rainyb
Lorraine Brecht
Love the gargoyles!!