No 20 Saint John Street … a fine example of a well-preserved Georgian house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
Patrick Comerford
For some years now, I have been posting some of my favourite architectural photographs occasionally to the site British Listed Buildings. These include photographs from Lichfield, Tamworth and Comberford in Staffordshire, Solihull in the West Midlands, Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire, and Calne and Quemerford in Wiltshire.
After my visit to Lichfield last weekend, I uploaded a photograph of No 20 Saint John Street.
This early Georgian house, standing next to the Friary site, is easy to pass by without noticing, yet it is a fine example of a well preserved Georgian house that has survived since about 1700.
The 300-year-old house in the early Georgian style is now in offices. It is a Grade II* listed building. The house was built ca 1700 with additions from the mid-18th and early 19th century.
No 20 is a brick building with plaster dressings and a hipped tile roof with brick stacks. It has a double-depth plan with side and rear wings, is two storeys tall with an attic, and has a symmetrical four-window range.
The house has a plaster plinth and top cornice. The entrance has an architrave and bracketed canopy. The front door is a four-fielded-panel door with two glazed panels.
There are two basement lights. The windows have brick flat arches and cross-casements. There two gabled dormers with two-light casements.
The left return has a small leaded light, there is a lateral stack and a wing with a gabled first floor with a cross-casement window over the carriage way. The right return has two brick platt bands and two stair windows with flanking windows, all with cross casements and some with leaded glazing. The two hipped dormers have two-light casements and an inserted entrance to left end. There is a lateral stack and a rainwater head with a downspout.
The two-storey 18th century wing has a platt band over the ground floor, three windows with 12-pane sashes to each floor, a coped gable end and an end stack.
The 19th century wing has a segmental-headed window to each floor, one small-paned casement and a six-pane horned sash. The rear of the house has two gables. There is varied fenestration, including a tripartite sash to the return of the wing, and the rear of the side wing has a hipped roof over a sashed window.
Inside the house, the room to the left has an ovolo-moulded beam with run-out stops. The room to the right has early 18th century panelling with a dado rail, a bolection-moulded fireplace with an over-mantel with egg-and-dart moulding to the panel and scrolled relief frieze and drops. There is a similar room above.
The dog-leg stair has turned balusters and square newels with finials and pendants, and a bolection-moulded dado. On the first floor, the room to the left has an angle fireplace with Delft tiles.
Stowe Pool Boat House was built around 1890 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
Having posted my photograph of this well-preserved early 18th century townhouse, I was surprised to find that there is no listing for Stowe Pool Boat House in Lichfield.
The boathouse is brick-built with hanging tile decoration. It has a pitched clay tile roof with low eaves. It has a simple rectangular plan, it is a single storey building with additional roof space. There are painted timber barge-boards to the gable ends, and painted timbers to the corners of the building and at the top of blue brick plinth. The waterside elevation has a window and a direct entrance from Stowe Pool.
Although the boathouse is not a listed building, the area is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is home to a variety of birds and waterfowl as well as the rare and endangered, white-clawed crayfish. The fish in Stowe Pool include roach, perch, carp, pike and tench.
Stowe Pool along with Minster Pool and the Bishop’s Pool were formerly valuable fisheries. In the 18th century, the mill stream on Reeve Lane divided to flow into Stowe Pool as two streams.
A conduit carries Leomansley Brook and Trunkfield Brook under the Museum Gardens and Bird Street into Minster Pool. The water is then fed into a pipe under Dam Street and Stowe Fields, and then into Stowe Pool.
Many of the fields in this area were referred to as “moggs” – a word peculiar to Lichfield and meaning boggy ground.
The ground to the south of Stowe Pool was occupied by long narrow gardens belonging to the houses on Lombard Street.
South Staffordshire Waterworks Company took over Stowe Pool in 1856, and it was then built into a reservoir. This structure is around six metres higher than the original ground level.
During the building work, the waterworks company planted ornamental trees and created a new path along the top of the embankment, and the boathouse was built ca 1890, although some accounts describe it as “Edwardian.”
Before 1856, Stowe Pool existed as a mill pond, with Stowe Mill located to the west of Saint Chad’s Church. Since 1968, the reservoir has not been used to supply water, and it is now solely used for recreation. Stowe Pool is now owned and managed by Lichfield District Council.
Looking across Stowe Pool to Saint Chad’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
02 June 2015
Fields of green and signs of summer
on a country walk near Lichfield
Purple and pink blossom on the grass at the Hedgehog Inn in Lichfield on Saturday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
Patrick Comerford
A new ap on my phone tells me how long I have walked and how many steps I have taken each day. I am at a daily average of 2.63 km and over 3,000 steps, which seems to be the general average, but a long way from what all the experts recommend.
On Saturday, however, I managed to raise the stakes for myself, with about 15 km of walking during my visit to Lichfield.
I have some favourite walks when I am staying in Lichfield, and Saturday’s weather was certainly the beginning of summer, with blue skies and temperatures in the high teens.
Early in the morning, I had a stroll around the Cathedral Close, and there were short visits to Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield Cathedral and the Cathedral Bookshop before joining the visit to Dr Milley’s Hospital on Beacon Street with Lichfield Discovered.
Walking around Stowe Pool in Lichfield on Saturday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
After coffee with friends and visiting the Cruck House, I strolled around Stowe Pool, by Samuel Johnson’s willow and the boat house, and then along Minster Pool below the three graceful spires of Lichfield Cathedral.
In the Remembrance Gardens beside Minster Pool, the foxglove tree is in full bloom. This magnificent, ornamental flowering tree is a native to China and was introduced into Britain around the 1830s. The fragrant, mauve, bell-shaped flowers open in late Spring if the buds have not been damaged by winter cold in the previous months. The tree grows rapidly in its younger years and thrives best when it has a large amount of light and good shelter.
At present, the largest foxglove tree in Britain is over 15 metres tall and is growing in Cardiff. A note pinned to the tree in Lichfield wonders whether this may yet grow to be the tallest foxglove tree in Britain.
The foxglove tree is flowering in the Remembrance Garden, by Minister Pool and below Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
From Minister Pool, I then continued on a lengthy walk in the sunshine along Beacon Street, until it turns into Stafford Road. There I crossed into Cross in Hand Lane and out into the countryside on the northern fringes of Lichfield.
Cross in Hand Lane was the main road from Lichfield to Stafford from the late 13th century until 1770, but today it is a quiet country lane that leads eventually to the quaintly-named village of Farewell.
It was named Cross in Hand Lane because pilgrims or travellers on their way between Chester and Lichfield used this route, carrying a cross in their hand.
There are records of a mediaeval cross between Beacon Street and Cross in Hand Lane, but there are no traces of this cross today. The story goes that the cross with the hand that was standing at the fork in the road in the 15th century was simply a post to point directions.
Cross in Hand Lane … a quaint name with many explanations (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
In 1770, the course of the road was straightened and was diverted to follow a new line to the east, now the present Stafford Road.
Last Saturday afternoon, however, it was a pleasant, quiet country lane, in the bright sunshine, inviting me to stroll through fields and farmland, by country cottages, farmhouses and timber-framed barns and by babbling brooks.
Watch out for horses and riders … a sign on Cross in Hand Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
The fields are rich and green, the traffic is gentle to the point of being almost non-existent, and the only road signs I noticed warned me to watch out for horses and riders.
It was hard to imagine that I was still close to urban and suburban life, and I found myself rejoicing in the joys of creation, and delighted in the divine gift of the countryside.
The hedgerows are forming over-hanging garlands enclosing Cross in Hand Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
The hedgerows were forming over-hanging garlands, yet through them there was glimpse of the country road ahead, fields lined full with crops and lined with trees on each side of me, and charming cottages sprinkled through the countryside.
I have walked this country lane many times in the past few years, and it never ceases to make me thankful for God’s good gifts.
Fields of green by Cross in Hand Lane on the northern fringes of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
Eventually I turned back along Cross in Hand Lane, and strolled into the grounds of the Hedgehog Vintage Inn, where I have stayed many times over the last few years.
In the early summer weather, the trees were majestic, the pink and purple blossom covered some of the grounds, and families were enjoying the sunshine with their children.
Colourful suburban growth on Stafford Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
After a late lunch with a long-standing friend and a glass of wine in the sunshine on the lawn in front of the Hedgehog, I decided to stroll back into Lichfield along Stafford Road and Beacon Street. Even in the suburban gardens, the colours were rich.
As I came close to the Cathedral, the growth along the walls of Vicars’ Hall were profuse, and the afternoon sunshine was still warm and embracing … even if I realised that I have a lot of work to do before my daily walking average comes up to a healthy figure.
Rich growth around Vicars’ Hall near Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
Patrick Comerford
A new ap on my phone tells me how long I have walked and how many steps I have taken each day. I am at a daily average of 2.63 km and over 3,000 steps, which seems to be the general average, but a long way from what all the experts recommend.
On Saturday, however, I managed to raise the stakes for myself, with about 15 km of walking during my visit to Lichfield.
I have some favourite walks when I am staying in Lichfield, and Saturday’s weather was certainly the beginning of summer, with blue skies and temperatures in the high teens.
Early in the morning, I had a stroll around the Cathedral Close, and there were short visits to Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield Cathedral and the Cathedral Bookshop before joining the visit to Dr Milley’s Hospital on Beacon Street with Lichfield Discovered.
Walking around Stowe Pool in Lichfield on Saturday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
After coffee with friends and visiting the Cruck House, I strolled around Stowe Pool, by Samuel Johnson’s willow and the boat house, and then along Minster Pool below the three graceful spires of Lichfield Cathedral.
In the Remembrance Gardens beside Minster Pool, the foxglove tree is in full bloom. This magnificent, ornamental flowering tree is a native to China and was introduced into Britain around the 1830s. The fragrant, mauve, bell-shaped flowers open in late Spring if the buds have not been damaged by winter cold in the previous months. The tree grows rapidly in its younger years and thrives best when it has a large amount of light and good shelter.
At present, the largest foxglove tree in Britain is over 15 metres tall and is growing in Cardiff. A note pinned to the tree in Lichfield wonders whether this may yet grow to be the tallest foxglove tree in Britain.
The foxglove tree is flowering in the Remembrance Garden, by Minister Pool and below Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
From Minister Pool, I then continued on a lengthy walk in the sunshine along Beacon Street, until it turns into Stafford Road. There I crossed into Cross in Hand Lane and out into the countryside on the northern fringes of Lichfield.
Cross in Hand Lane was the main road from Lichfield to Stafford from the late 13th century until 1770, but today it is a quiet country lane that leads eventually to the quaintly-named village of Farewell.
It was named Cross in Hand Lane because pilgrims or travellers on their way between Chester and Lichfield used this route, carrying a cross in their hand.
There are records of a mediaeval cross between Beacon Street and Cross in Hand Lane, but there are no traces of this cross today. The story goes that the cross with the hand that was standing at the fork in the road in the 15th century was simply a post to point directions.
Cross in Hand Lane … a quaint name with many explanations (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
In 1770, the course of the road was straightened and was diverted to follow a new line to the east, now the present Stafford Road.
Last Saturday afternoon, however, it was a pleasant, quiet country lane, in the bright sunshine, inviting me to stroll through fields and farmland, by country cottages, farmhouses and timber-framed barns and by babbling brooks.
Watch out for horses and riders … a sign on Cross in Hand Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
The fields are rich and green, the traffic is gentle to the point of being almost non-existent, and the only road signs I noticed warned me to watch out for horses and riders.
It was hard to imagine that I was still close to urban and suburban life, and I found myself rejoicing in the joys of creation, and delighted in the divine gift of the countryside.
The hedgerows are forming over-hanging garlands enclosing Cross in Hand Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
The hedgerows were forming over-hanging garlands, yet through them there was glimpse of the country road ahead, fields lined full with crops and lined with trees on each side of me, and charming cottages sprinkled through the countryside.
I have walked this country lane many times in the past few years, and it never ceases to make me thankful for God’s good gifts.
Fields of green by Cross in Hand Lane on the northern fringes of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
Eventually I turned back along Cross in Hand Lane, and strolled into the grounds of the Hedgehog Vintage Inn, where I have stayed many times over the last few years.
In the early summer weather, the trees were majestic, the pink and purple blossom covered some of the grounds, and families were enjoying the sunshine with their children.
Colourful suburban growth on Stafford Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
After a late lunch with a long-standing friend and a glass of wine in the sunshine on the lawn in front of the Hedgehog, I decided to stroll back into Lichfield along Stafford Road and Beacon Street. Even in the suburban gardens, the colours were rich.
As I came close to the Cathedral, the growth along the walls of Vicars’ Hall were profuse, and the afternoon sunshine was still warm and embracing … even if I realised that I have a lot of work to do before my daily walking average comes up to a healthy figure.
Rich growth around Vicars’ Hall near Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)
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