Tag Archives: Lichfield

Sir Gilbert Scott and Lichfield

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Following on from yesterday’s google doodle of the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras, to to commemorate the 200th birthday of Sir George Gilbert Scott, I had a quick look at Scott’s connections to Lichfield.

Scott was the Lichfield cathedral architect from 1855 to 1878, first restoring the interior of the Cathedral and then working on the exterior, including the West Front which had been vandalised during the civil war and covered in roman cement in  an earlier restoration.You can read more about the restoration at the Lichfield Cathedral website. 

It seems Lichfield Cathedral isn’t the only city building that Sir Gilbert Scott was involved with.  In the early days of his career he had formed a partnership with his former assistant William Bonython Moffatt. The Scott & Moffat practice made workhouses their speciality. Apparently, they would monitor the newspapers for adverts by Poor Law Unions looking for architects to build their new workhouses. Scott & Moffat answered an advert placed by the Lichfield Workhouse Board of Guardians, looking for  “Plans and Specifications for a Workhouse to hold two hundred Paupers, in accordance with Mr Kempthorne’s Model.”  Scott & Moffat were eventually selected after much deliberation by the workhouse guardians and work began on the tudor style building on 24th May 1838 and it was officially opened on 8th May 1840. Their work can still be seen at the old St Michael’s hospital on Trent Valley Rd.

Scott and Moffat parted company in 1845, after designing around 40 workhouses together. Scott’s wife Caroline Oldrid was said to have put an end to the partnership, as she believed that Moffat had become unreliable. In 1860, Moffat was was imprisoned as a debtor. After their partnership ended, Scott carried on with his two sons as his assistants. His younger son, John Oldrid Scott took over his father’s practice in 1878 and was the architect overseeing the restoration of the cathedral spire in my previous post! I was reading his notes and letters to the Dean and Chapter just a few days ago (his handwriting is terrible!). Scott’s eldest son George died at the age of 58, strangely enough at the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station.

Scott was knighted in 1872 but faced some critiscism during his career.  William Morris and others founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877, in response to what they felt was the unsympathetic restoration of medieval buildings by Victorian Architects, Scott amongst them. Apparently on Scott’s death, Morris described him as ‘the happily dead dog’.

The Midland Hotel was threatened with demolition in the 1960s, but The Victorian Society campaigned and the hotel became grade I listed.  The hotel was reopened earlier this year as the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel. 

You can see a list of the buildings Scott worked on here.  I’m pleased to see that they’ve included a picture of Lichfield Cathedral!

Sources
www.scottisharchitects.org.uk

www.workhouses.org.uk

Cathedral City by Howard Clayton

This Won’t Hurt – A History of the Hospitals of Lichfield by Mary Hutchinson, Ingrid Croot and Anna Sadowski

www.guardian.co.uk Article ‘Sir George Gilbert Scott, the unsung hero of British architecture’

The Cathedral Spire – A Hatchett Job!

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A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by Vickie Sutton. Vickie is from a family with some amazing connections to Lichfield. She believes it’s vital that the wonderful memories and stories that have been passed down to her are recorded, and shared with other people, so that they don’t get lost and forgotten.

A caricature of Henry Hatchett by one of his colleagues. (1)

One of the first stories Vickie shared with me is about her great grandfather Henry Hatchett. Henry began working for Bridgemans of Lichfield in the 1890s. Employed as a as a labourer, he mastered the arts of casting, cleaning stone and marble.  Henry was periodically sent to Edinburgh to maintain the Last Supper sculpture (based on the painting by Da Vinci) in St Cuthbert’s Church, and as a result, his colleagues gave him the nickname ‘MacHatchett’! (1)Vickie knew that Henry had been involved in restoring the central spire at Lichfield Cathedral and together, we set out to discover the full story…..
 
 

 

 Lichfield is of course famous for having three spires but it seems that the central spire has had all sorts of problems! It was destroyed in 1646 during the civil war and was restored in 1666. Between 1788 and 1795 it was restored again with further work being carried out in 1892/3.

In 1949 there was trouble with the spire again. The Dean reported that in high wind, the ball and cross were moving. An architect, Mr George Pace, was consulted and gave a verdict that came as a shock to the Dean. Due to corrosion of the iron anchors and cramps, and weathering of the mortar, the spire was in such bad condition that the last 11 feet could be shook by hand. It would need to be repaired immediately. Mr Pace later described how in his view, a delay in the work could have resulted in the spire crashing through the cathedral roof. More than 20ft of the spire had to be pulled down and rebuilt. The Dean was unwilling to finance the work with a bank loan believing that it would have been ‘lazy, and stupid, and unsound finance’ and turned instead to the public, launching the ‘Lichfield Spire Repair Fund’. As Christmas 1949 drew near, the Dean urged people donate suggesting it would be a ‘glorious Christmas present’ for the Cathedral. Eventually, the cost of the work amounted to more than £9,000 and the amount was raised by people, not just from Lichfield but from all over the country.(2)

Twenty-two stone courses were removed from the spire to Bridgeman’s premises on Quonians Lane, where they were either replaced or redressed.

A new cross was designed by the architect George Pace, and incorporated the Jerusalem motif, found on the Cathedral Arms. The ball (2 foot in diameter) was taken down and was found to contain several rolls of parchment and a ½ oz of twist (tobacco) and the remains of half a pint of beer! One of the parchments told how the ball and cross had been taken down for repair and re-gilded on 12th September 1893 and was signed by the Rt Rev The Honourable Augustus Legge. The second parchment had a list of those holding civic office at the time and also the signatures of the men engaged in the work. It was on this list that the name Henry Hatchett, labourer appeared. (3)

The scrolls from 1893 were placed in the archives and replaced with a new scroll inscribed with the names of those holding civic office in 1949/50 and once again, the names of those carrying out the work. The ball was re-gilded with two layers of the finest double English gold leaf. This was carried out in situ by Mr George Kingsland from Birmingham. On 19th June 1950, a celebratory meal was held in the Swan Hotel by the Dean & Chapter, to which everyone involved in the work on the spire was invited. Vickie’s family remember there being some sort of grand unveiling of the new cross and ball, but I haven’t been able to locate any details regarding this yet. (4)

I love this story as it shows that even the most well-known of our buildings can still have secrets! I wonder if the addition of the beer and tobacco was an authorised one? Also, does anyone know where the old parchements are stored?

I really want to thank Vickie for sharing this. We are working on some more of her brilliant family stories at the moment, but in the meantime check out this link and enjoy some of the views from that troublesome central spire.

Sources

1 & 4 The Annals of a Century: Bridgemans of Lichfield 1878 – 1978 by O Keyte

2 & 3Lichfield Mercury Archives accessed at Lichfield Record Office

You say Leamonsley, I say Leomansley

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I still don’t think anyone is quite sure how this area of Lichfield is actually spelled. It’s not suprising, I’ve come across at least five different versions over the last five years! I remember there was an issue with signposts some years ago too. I’m going with Leomansley for consistency as this seems to be the current spelling that most would recognise.

Accoring to a transaction on pre-conquest Lichfield from the Staffordshire Archaeological & Historical Society, the name Leomansley contains elements indicating there may have been a Welsh settlement here around the 6th century.

Lemansyche

In ‘Lichfield: The cathedral close’, A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14: Lichfield (1990), pp. 57-67, it tells us that

“in the 13th century the cathedral was described as being between Lemansyche and Way Clife. Gaia Lane may have been called Lemansyche as Shaw Lane, the extension of Gaia Lane on the west side of Beacon Street, is in the direction of Leamonsley”.

Edit 2/2/2012 : The origins of placenames is a fascinating but tricky subject. I did read a few days ago that ‘sike’ or ‘sitch’ could be a regional names for a small streams (especially one flowing through flat or marshy ground). Apparently the word was used especially when describing boundaries. It comes from the OE ‘sic’ and in the Midlands became ‘sich’ by the 1500s (2).

So could I be right in thinking that the Lemansyche referred to might be Leomansley Brook, which runs across Beacon Park? This would be in keeping with the boundary idea and also with the stream over marshy ground. As this excerpt from wikipedia says ‘The land on which Beacon Park now stands was originally low lying, poorly drained pasture alongside the Leamonsley Brook. The Museum Gardens and Recreation Grounds were the site of Bishops Fish Pool or Upper Pool. The pool was created when a causeway was built on Beacon Street in the 14th century separating it from Minster Pool. The area around Bishops Fish Pool in all directions was waterlogged marshland, this area south of Bird Street became known as the moggs from the 15th century and later Swan moggs’.

Is this feasible? As I said, a tricky subject, even for experts, and especially for dabblers like me!

Leamonsley

We are told by the County History that that the hamlet* of Leamonsley grew up around the fulling mill on Leamonsley brook in the early 1790s. In 1841 census there were 13 households, including that of the tenant of the mill; with the number rising to 27 households in 1851.

* a term often used to describe a village without a church

Lemondsley

In 1806, the Rev Thomas Harwood referred to “four closes of land, pasture and meadow, lying next together near the said city (Lichfield), called Lemondsley for which the rent of 10s per annum is now paid”.

Lemmonsly

In the book “Trade Tokens” by J.R.S.Whiting, and on http://www.windmillworld.com, there is a reference to a twopenny token of Lemmonsly Worsted Mill, Lichfield (John Henrickson). Henrickson is a “calico, cotton and shirting manufacturer” . The token shows a mill with trees at sides, and river. On the reverse is the arms of Lichfield between oak branches, and text “One pound note for 120 tokens”. A picture can be seen on Flickr following this link.

www.flickr.com/photos/30084068@N08/3305680975/in/photostream

There is no date on the token but John Henrickson let and ran the mill from around 1810 until he went bankrupt in 1815.

Leomansley Mill, now that sounds like an interesting place………..

Sources

‘Lichfield: The 19th century’, A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14: Lichfield (1990), pp. 24-32. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=42338 .

(2) Edit 2/2/2012 http://voices.yahoo.com/shallow-shoal-shoot-sike-sitch-origins-forms-histories-5293647.html