Patrick Comerford
When I was in Tamworth last week, I called in to No 18 Coffee House and Wine Bar on Lichfield Street while I was on my way to see the Moat House, the former Comberford family Tudor-style mansion further west on the same side of Lichfield Street.
I had been in No 18 once before, but it was at the end of day, and I wanted time to see inside this listed building and to find out more about its reputation as a coffee shop.
No 18 serves freshly ground 200 degrees coffee, roasted locally in the Midlands, as well as fresh homemade food, and also offers a wide range of wine. The signature espresso blend Brazilian Love Affair originates in Brazil and has notes of chocolate, hazelnut and caramel.
No 17 and No 18 Lichfield Street together form a Grade II listed building on the south side of the street, a few metres east of the Moat House. Over the years, the building that forms Nos 17 and 18 has been a school, a betting shop, a restaurant, and a furniture shop.
The former school at 17-18 Lichfield Street was built in 1837 for Sir Robert Peel and looks like a Victorian chapel. It was the second building for the Peel School first founded in 1820 in Church Street, beside Saint Editha’s churchyard, and it remained a school until Peel built another school building designed by Sydney Smirke on the other side of Lichfield Street in 1850.
In recent years, No 17 was a betting shop and then a furniture shop until it closed and was sold in 2019. When I was there last week, it was good to see that after a six-year wait, the building appears to be receiving careful and attentive restoration.
No 17 has a large Gothic window in the gable, with a 20th century door below, flanked by a lower Tudor-headed window and door with label moulds and traceried spandrels – the window to the left was partly-bricked up and once had a Y-tracery window that I hope has survived behind the present boarding; the entrance to the right has a plank door.
I began wondering some years ago, when No 17 was boarded up and vacant, looking sadly dilapidated and neglected, whether it may once have been the private chapel of the Comberford family at the Moat House further west on the same side of Lichfield Street.
In a comment on a Tamworth Facebook page some years ago, Andrew Hale suggested that the building was originally a private chapel and was located in the original grounds of the Moat House. He says the original bill for moving the building was paid not by the owners of the Moat House but by Sir Robert Peel, on the condition that it was converted into a school.
Andrew Hale did his prize-winning history project on the Moat House and its history in 1978-1980, while he was at Wilnecote High School. His mother was the head chef at the Moat House for many years and much of his information came from the Peel trust and the owners of the Moat House at that time. The history project earned him the school history and research prize for 1980.
When Sir Robert Peel was moving his school from Church Street to Lichfield Street in 1837, Dr John Woody was living at the Moat House, having bought it with his mother in 1821. The Woody family had been tenants of the Moat House, and they bought it when parts of the Tamworth Castle estate were being sold off by a London auctioneer, John Robins, to clear the debts of the Townshend family.
If Sir Robert Peel moved the former chapel at the Moat House lock, stock and barrel to a new location further each along Lichfield Street for use as a school, was this the original chapel at the Moat House? And does this explain some of its pre-Victorian details, including the large Gothic window in the gable, the lower Tudor-headed window and door, and the pinnacles?
Although I have often seen the location of the supposed ‘priests’ holes’ in the Moat House, I was not aware until recent years that there may have been a private chapel in the grounds of the Moat House. Until the late 17th century, members of the Comberford family used Saint Catherine’s Chapel or the Comberford Chapel in the north aisle of Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, as the private family chapel, including for family burials and memorials. Some more research is needed on a possible chapel in the Moat House.
Next door, the entrance to No 18 has a rubbed brick cambered arch and six-panel door, and there are two windows, one on the ground floor weathered sill and a rubbed brick cambered arch and above a segmental-headed casement window with a pegged frame.
Next door to No 17 and No 18, No 19 on this stretch of Lichfield Street is also a Grade II listed building. One part of the ground floor has become part of the coffee shop and wine bar at No 18, with a large fireplace with a bressumer or large load-bearing timber beam and a 19th century range, and a connecting door that appears to be blocked at all times.
No 19 dates from the early 18th century, and has a chequer brick pattern with vitrified headers on a stone plinth. It was built as substantial residence with a central staircase plan, and it has two storeys and an attic.
The entrance has a wooden architrave, frieze and modillioned cornice, with paired two-panel doors. The ground floor has segmental-headed windows, while the first floor has five windows with rubbed brick flat arche. The attic has three gabled dormers.
No 19 is currently being sold by the freeholders by private treaty through Calders of 3 Victoria Road, Tamworth. The agent’s photographs show how it is in need of complete restoration and refurbishment.
Calders describe it as a ‘rare and unusual opportunity’. They are inviting offers by Friday 23 May 2025, and are quoting a guide price of £295,000.
Meanwhile, No 18 Coffee House and Wine Bar at 18 Lichfield Street, Tamworth, is open from 8 am to 4 pm Sunday to Thursday and from 8 am to 11:45 pm on Fridays to Saturdays.
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