A neighbour of the King’s Head has been complaining about the noise. Perhaps when they moved to the area they didn’t realise that there was a pub nearby – after all it has only been there since 1495. Anyway, for anyone who is interested in one of Lichfield’s oldest and most historic inns, here is a bit of history and legend.
According to the County History, The King’s Head in Bird Street was known as such by 1694 but in existence as the Antelope by 1495 and later called the Bush.

 On 25th March 1705 Colonel Luke Lillingston raised a regiment initially named ‘Lillingston’s Regiment’, then the ’38th of Foot’, and finally ‘The South Staffordshire Regiment’.  The 80th Regiment of Foot was raised in 1793 by Henry William Paget for the Revolutionary War with France and the original headquarters and place for enlistment was The King’s Head.

It is of course listed and the description given is ‘A coaching inn, now public house. Mid to late C18 with early C19 alterations. A good example of one of the coaching inns which served the London to Holyhead and Carlisle road’.

From the 1828-29 Pigotts Directory (as seen on the Burntwood Family History Group Website).

Coaches
TO LONDON the Herald (from Manchester) calls at the King’s Head every morning (Mondays excepted) at half past-two; goes thro’ Tamworth, Atherstone, Coventry, Daventry, Towcester, Stoney Stratford, Dunstable, St Albans Ec
TO MANCHESTER the Herald, (from London) calls at the King’s Head, every morning (Mondays excepted) at nine; goes thro’ Stone, Newcastle, Congleton Ec.
CARRIERS (i.e. freight)
TO BIRMINGHAM, Mrs. Bates, from the King’s Head,
TO BIRMINGHAM, UTTOXETER Ec.. Thomas Butler, from the King’s Head
The pub features on the Lichfield Ghost Walk. A maid is supposed to have died in a fire and a ghostly light is seen flickering in the upstairs windows. A mortally wounded laughing (!) cavalier wanders the pavement outside. According to the Staffordshire Encyclopedia there is also a ghost called George. On a personal note, I was sitting at a table with my family near the bar several years ago and I felt a sharp pain in my neck, as if someone had flicked it really hard and my necklace fell off. My neck had a big red mark on it and I’m still not quite sure what caused it!



Most of us Lichfeldians know about St Chad’s well. However, I have come across a few other wells in Lichfield which seem to have disappeared.

Merliches Well – According to the William Salt Archaeological Society’s ‘Collection for a History of Staffordshire’, Merliches Well was on Merliches Lane, a short lane at right angles to Pipe Lane. Pipe Lane was the old name for Abnalls Lane and was on the east side of Beacon Street, or Bacone Street as it was known then.

From A Short Account of the Ancient and Modern State of the City and Close of Lichfield, ‘on the North Side of Shaw Lane leading to Merliche’s or Maudlin’s Well was a large house called Whitehall, and on the south side the Archdeacon of Chester had a house’. ( I think the Archdeacons house was on the corner of Beacon St and Shaw Lane).

John Jackson’s History of the City and Cathedral of Lichfield says that tradition suggests that Maudlins Well was so called due to a drunkard tumbling in one evening after one too many. However Jackson believes that the name instead referes to Magdalen.

Jacob’s Well – near Friar’s Alley, a few yards from the brook near this place was a spring formerly in repute for curing weak eyes and sores.

Marywell – In Breadmarket St, was a house called Priest’s Hall (now St Mary’s Chambers) and near here was a well called Marywell. According to the County History, St. Mary’s Well, in Breadmarket Street opposite the west end of St. Mary’s church, existed in the late Middle Ages

A while ago someone told me that the Lichfield Gallows were situated near the Shell Garage on the London Road/Tamworth Road junction. A woman had told him she was walking past one evening and was pushed by unseen hands. Spooky!

I’ve always meant to check if this was correct and it appears that it is (the location that is, not the spooky story)!

Here’s a link to one of the oldest maps I know of – John Ogilby 1675 Lichfield to Chester  It’s fascinating in its own right, but for today’s purposes look at the bottom left corner and you’ll see Gallows marked, just outside of Lichfield.

‘The History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14’ tells us that ‘A gallows was built, or possibly repaired, at the bishop’s expense in 1532–3. In 1650 there was a gallows on the west side of the London road near its junction with Shortbutts Lane. The gallows there fell down c. 1700, its foundations undermined by people digging for sand, but it was re-erected’

In ‘Staffordshire Customs, Supersitions and Folklore (1924)’, Frederick Hackwood writes that at Gallows Wharf ‘half a centry ago a decayed oak stump stood two feet out of the ground….and was said to be the remains of the ancient gallows-tree’.

Given the description from the County History above, it seems unlikely that this is correct. However, it wouldn’t be the only one in the area – in Brereton (Brewerton?), near Rugeley, Mr Ogilby has marked ‘a hangmans oake on ye road’. A quick look at the archives does show a Hangman’s Croft in Brereton in the 1800s but at the moment I can’t find any other references.

JW Jackson, a City Librarian of Lichfield, contributed a local history column to the Lichfield Mercury in the 1930s. He carried out some research into crime and punishment in Lichfield and found that in 1711 the Sheriff of Lichfield was instructed to carry out two executions. One of these was a man condemned for murder. The other a woman who was sentenced to death for stealing a pair of shoes, a straw hat with brimming, a sixpenny loafe and a cheese. Presumably this poor woman fell foul of the 1699 Shoplifting Act which made it a capital offence to steal goods worth more than 5 shillings!

It seems public executions in Lichfield weren’t a common occurence. According to the website Capitalpunishmentuk, six executions were carried out in the City between 1735 and 1782.  Three men were hanged for uttering (which I understand is the crime of putting something forged into circulation) in April 1801 and the gallows was used for the last time on 1 June 1810 when three forgers were hanged. On the 1884 Ordnance Survey Map, the area is called Gallow’s Wharf, but by the 1920s it was known as St John’s Wharf.

One of the great thing about doing this blog is that whilst looking for one thing, you find ten other things! It’s amazing how many fascinating things are on your doorstep, or just down the A5 in this case. Until recently, I had never heard of Knaves Castle, but now that I have, I’m intrigued as to what this was. It seems that this question has puzzled people over the centuries.

Back in 1794, in ‘The History and Antiquities of Shenstone’, Rev Henry Sanders wrote that Dr Plot believed that Knaves Castle was a place to watch travellers safely cross ‘this heath, formerly all wood and much infested with robberies’…'(for) which the passengers allowed some small gratuity’.  In complete contrast, he reported that another of Dr Plot’s theories was that ‘the robbers themselves harboured in this place’ and hence the name Knaves Castle.  Rev Sanders’ own opinion is that ‘though there remain no signs of a fort, it seems very likely to have been one to guard strangers passing over so wild and dreary a country as Cannoc Wood is at present; much more was it such formerly, when full of woods and thickets’. I’m assuming that he is referring to Dr Robert Plot who wrote a ‘Natural History of Staffordshire’ in 1686 which included a map showing Knaves Castle (this can be seen on the Staffordshire Past Track website.

In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson’s Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales, says ‘Traces of a Roman camp, called Knave’s Castle, are to the N of the village’ (the village referred to is Ogley Hay).

According to ‘Notes on Staffordshire Place Names’ by WH Duignan of Walsall, earthworks and tumuli are often called castles.  The book states that the tumulus is now almost obliterated and enclosed in a garden, but that sixty years ago was very plain (the book was written in 1902, so ’60 years ago’ would have been the 1840s).

Knave’s Castle is a kilometre west of the Staffordshire Hoard findsite, but Della Hooke from the University of Birmingham, in her paper ‘The Landscape of the Staffordshire Hoard’, casts doubt on the description of Knave’s Castle as a tumulus and believes that it is no more than a raised natural hillock.

The English Heritage description of the site can be at found at the Pastscape website.

Unfortunately, no there are no physical remains of  Knaves Castle.  Was it really a Roman earthwork, a hideout for robbers or just a hill?

Update: Since originally doing this post earlier this year, I have since come across an excellent and much more in depth post on Knaves Castle on The Gatehouse website.  The post concludes that Knaves Castle was an artificial earthwork, albeit one that may have developed from a natural feature.

Anna Seward’s will, was said to have contained a riddle, with instructions to her executors to pay £50 to the first person to provide the correct solution. The enigma ended with the verse:

Now, if your nobler spirit can divine
A corresponding word for every line,
By all these letters clearly shall be shown,
An ancient City of no small renown.

In a compilation of Thomas Sedgwick Whalley’s Journals and Correspondence, there is a letter from Mrs Whalley, to her husband in 1816, enquiring whether he had been told the solution to the rebus by Miss Seward, as someone had managed to make the word ‘Litchfield’ but she had not heard whether the executors had agreed the claim. The editor of the compilation has added a footnote.  He asked a friend to find out more about the enigma. On January 31^st 1863, the friend wrote to tell him that “ having been carefully through both the will and the codicils, which are very lengthy….there is nothing in either which in any way refers to “an enigma” which could be so construed”. Reuben Percy claimed the enigma was a shortened copy of a puzzle published in the Gentleman’s Magazine in March 1757, attributed to Lord Chesterfield. A solution offered by Solyman Brown was IEROSOLUMA, which I think is Greek name for Jerusalem.  You can find various versions of the enigma, and the solution, on Google Books. If, as it seems, The Swan of Lichfield’s will did not contain the ‘enigma’, it would be interesting to discover where the story originated.

Sources
Gleanings from the Harvest Fields of Literature – Charles Carroll Bombaugh Relics of Literature – Reuben PercyAn Essay on American Poetry – Solyman Brown
Journals & Correspondence – by Thomas Sedgwick Whalley, ed. Rev Hill Wickham