25 September 2019

The future looks brighter
for the Angel Croft and
Westgate House in Lichfield

Work on restoring and refurbishing the former Angel Croft Hotel on Beacon Street, Lichfield, is almost complete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

During my return visit to Lichfield last week, as I walked many times between the Hedgehog on Stafford Road and Lichfield Cathedral, I was pleased to see that the former Angel Croft Hotel, Westgate House and Westgate Cottage on Beacon Street are being saved for future generations.

The Angel Croft once epitomised elegant hotel accommodation in Lichfield. But in recent years the building had fallen into such a sad state of disrepair and neglect that I had wondered on many occasions (2011, 2013, 2013) whether it was beyond saving and restoring.

However, Friel Construction, based in Great Wyrley, recently acquired the former Angel Croft Hotel, Westgate House and Westgate Cottage, along with the surrounding land on Beacon Street, including the hotel car park.

The Angel Croft came with planning permission to convert both the hotel and its outbuildings into nine apartments. Friel Construction are developing the three-acre site into what is described as ‘luxury city centre living while harmonising with the Georgian architecture of the surrounding area.’

The Angel Croft is a Grade 2* listed building, and Westgate House and Westgate Cottage are Grade 2 listed buildings. This means these buildings must be restored with care and attention. The surrounding land is also of historic interest, and an archaeologist was involved in the project from an early stage.

Although both the Angel Croft Hotel and Westgate House date from ca 1750, their stories date back to the mid-12th century and the prebendal lands that provided stipends or incomes for the prebendaries or canons of Lichfield Cathedral.

Land in the Gaia Lane area was included in the endowment of the Prebend of Gaia in Lichfield Cathedral and was in existence probably by the mid-12th century. The prebend was divided into two prebends, Gaia Major and Gaia Minor, before 1279.

In 1498, the Prebend of Freeford’s property in Lichfield included the Angel in Beacon Street on the south side of the later Angel Croft hotel. It was rebuilt in the early 16th century, but was destroyed in the Civil War.

A rental from this time (1497-1498) also shows that the property of the Vicars Choral included two inns in Beacon Street: the Talbot on the site of the later Angel Croft hotel and the Cock.

A house was built on the site of the Talbot ca 1790 for George Addams, a wine merchant.

It became the Angel Croft hotel around 1930. However, by the 1980s its reputation was slipping, and one reviewer described it as Lichfield’s ‘very own Fawlty Towers.’ Yet it was still being advertised as recently as 2008, although by then its AA rating had slipped to one star.

New owners began refurbishing the hotel around 2008, but the property was broken into soon after, the pipes were stolen and the building was flooded.

The Angel Croft Hotel closed in recent years. Some reports said it was bought by the Best Western chain, which also owns the George Hotel on Bird Street, where the playwright George Farquhar was supposed to have stayed.

Renovation work resumed a few years ago, but for many years it seemed nothing was being done to repair the building, and while there was no sign outside to say the hotel was closed, it lay empty for years. again.

Some window panes – over the main front door and at the rear – were broken, the rear gate was open, and the Angel Croft Hotel became a sad sight. Although a conservation team from Lichfield District Council was said to be monitoring the situation and in regular contact with the owners, no work has been carried out for some years, and English Heritage regarded the building as ‘at risk.’

Work continues on restoring and refurbishing Westgate House and Westgate Cottage on Beacon Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

As for Westgate House, a house outside the Close was annexed to the Prebend of Wolvey in the later 1270s. This house, known as Pool Hall by 1438, stood on Beacon Street on the site of the present Westgate House.

It seems to have been destroyed during the Civil War in the mod-17th century, but was rebuilt by 1670. The present Westgate House and its front wall and railings date from ca 1750, when it was rebuilt once again, possibly by Peter Garrick, a brother of the actor David Garrick, who had leased the property.

The Friary School opened a boarding house for about 30 girls in Westgate House in 1953.

The school became a mixed comprehensive in 1971, and a new large school was built on Eastern Avenue and opened in 1973. Westgate House was closed in 1981, and the school stopped taking boarders.

Other properties on Beacon Street were also associated with the canons of Lichfield Cathedral, so that the Prebend of Hansacre had a tenement in Beacon Street by 1393, as did the Prebend of Weeford in 1548.

The vicars choral also received grants of houses, land, and rent charges from the early 13th century and became the largest clerical landowners in Lichfield. A rental of 1497-1498 shows the extent of their property. Apart from the Talbot on Beacon Street, later the site of the Angel Croft, their property included the Swan in Bird Street, acquired in 1362, the Talbot and a second inn on Beacon Street known as the Cock, and a house called White Hall in Beacon Street on the north side of Dr Milley’s Hospital.

By 1592, the vicars also had an inn in Beacon Street known as the Lamb, on the site of Westgate Cottage and opposite the entrance to the Cathedral Close.

Westgate Cottage dates from the 18th century, with early 19th century alterations. It is a two-storey, Tudor style house built in painted brick with a stucco façade. A return has a short wing connecting Westgate Cottage with Westgate House.

Vicars’ Close in Lichfield … by 1592, the vicars had an inn in Beacon Street known as the Lamb, on the site of Westgate Cottage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Two monuments by
the west door of
Lichfield Cathedral

The monument to Gilbert Walmesley (1680-1751) close to the West Door of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

During my visits to Lichfield Cathedral last week, my attention was drawn to two monuments beside the West Door that in their own way link Lichfield Cathedral with both the Comberford family and with the Montagu family, which for generations was associated with Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

The first of these monuments commemorates Gilbert Walmesley (1680-1751), the Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court of Lichfield and a friend of Samuel Johnson.

Walmesley was the descendant of an ancient family from Lancashire. Another member of this family, the Very Revd William Walmesley (1687-1730), was a Prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral in 1718-1720, and then Dean of Lichfield 1720-1730.

Richard Walmsley was the appraiser of probate in the Diocese of Lichfield. His daughter Mary was a god-daughter of William Comberford of Comberford and was named in his will, while his son, William Walmesley, was Registrar of Lichfield (1692), a Justice of the Peace (JP) or magistrate for Staffordshire, Whig MP for Lichfield City (January to November 1701), and the Chancellor of the Diocese of Lichfield from 1698 until his death in 1713.

William Walmesley married Dorothy Gilbert, daughter of Humphrey Gilbert of Fradley, in Lichfield Cathedral on 22 April 1675. When he died on 18 July 1713 he was buried in the cathedral. Their son, Gilbert Walmesley, was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, but did not take a degree. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1707, and became registrar of the ecclesiastical court of Lichfield.

Gilbert Walmesley was ‘the most able scholar and the finest gentleman’ in Lichfield, according to Anna Seward, the ‘Swan of Lichfield.’ He lived at the Bishop’s Palace in the Cathedral Close in Lichfield for 30 years, and was regularly visited there by a young Samuel Johnson and David Garrick.

Johnson described him as ‘a Whig with all the virulence and malevolence of his party,’ but conceded that he was polite and learned, and Johnson said he could not name ‘a man of equal knowledge.’ Indeed, Walmesley tried to have Johnson appointed the master of a school at Solihull in 1735.

Walmesley married Magdalen Aston, commonly known as Margaret or Margery, in April 1736. She was the fourth of eight daughters of Sir Thomas Aston of Aston-by-Sutton, Cheshire. Her sister, Elizabeth Aston of Stowe Hill House, Lichfield, who died in 1785, is one of the principal characters in the story of ‘Spite House.’

Gilbert Walmesley died in Lichfield on 3 August 1751, and his widow died on 11 November 1786, aged 77. They are buried in a vault near the south side of the west door in Lichfield Cathedral.

Samuel Johnson was said to have promised to write an epitaph for him. But he delayed on the project for so long that it was written instead by Anna Seward’s father, Canon Thomas Seward (1708-1790).

The monument to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) by the West Door of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

A nearby monument commemorates Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), who is remembered for her letters, her descriptions of her travels in the Ottoman Empire while her husband was the wife of the British ambassador to Turkey, and for introducing smallpox inoculation to Britain after her return from Turkey.

She was born Lady Mary Pierrepont, a daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull.

By 1710, Lady Mary had two possible suitors to choose from: Sir Edward Wortley-Montagu (1678-1761), MP for Huntingdon (1705-1713), and Clotworthy Skeffington, MP for Antrim (1703-1714) and, from 1714, the 4th Viscount Massereene in the Irish peerage.

To avoid marriage to Skeffington, Mary eloped with Montagu, and they probably married on 23 August 1712. The Montagus and Harringtons, two inter-related families from Northamptonshire, were at the heart of the early years of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. James Montagu (1568-1618) was the first Master of Sidney Sussex and became the Dean of Lichfield in 1603-1604.

Meanwhile, on 9 September 1713, Clotworthy Skeffington married Lady Catherine Chichester, sister of Arthur Chichester (1695-1757), 4th Earl of Donegall. The Skeffington family were the original proprietors of Fisherwick Park, between Lichfield and Tamworth. In the 1580s, William Comberford married his first wife, Mary Skeffington, daughter of William Skeffington of Fisherwick.

This William Comberford entertained the future Charles I as his guest at the Moat House in Lichfield Street, Tamworth, in August 1619. The Skeffington family acquired Comberford Hall in the first half of the 18th century. Both Fisherwick Hall and Comberford Hall were bought by the Earls of Donegall in 1789.

Mary Wortley-Montagu’s brother died of smallpox in 1713, and her own famous beauty had been marred by a bout of the disease in 1715, although she survived. A year later, Edward Wortley-Montagu was appointed the British Ambassador to Constantinople in 1716. She travelled with to Vienna in August, and from there they travelled on to Adrianople and Constantinople.

He was recalled in 1717, but they remained at Constantinople until 1718. They finally set sail for England, travelled through the Mediterranean, and arrived back in London on 2 October 1718.

Her account of their voyage and of her observations of Turkish life, including her experiences in a Turkish bath, are often credited as an inspiration for subsequent female travellers and writers and for Orientalist art. During her visit she was sincerely charmed by the beauty and hospitality of the Ottoman women she encountered, and she recorded their lives and thoughts.

In her writings, she praised Islam for what they saw as its rational approach to theology, for its strict monotheism, and for its teaching and practice of religious tolerance. She saw Islam as a source of the Enlightenment, and claimed the Qur'an was ‘the purest morality delivered in the very best language.’

She also returned to England with knowledge of the Ottoman practice of inoculation against smallpox, and defied convention by introducing smallpox inoculation to Western medicine.

Mary’s daughter Mary married the future Prime Minister, John Stuart (1713-1792), 3rd Earl of Bute, in August 1736, despite her parents’ disapproval of the match. That year, Mary began an affair with Count Francesco Algarotti. She left England in 1739, and went to live with Algarotti in Venice. Their relationship ended in 1741 but she continued to travel extensively, visiting Venice, Florence, Rome, Genoa and Geneva and Avignon.

During all this time, Sir Edward Wortley Montagu was MP for Huntingdon once again (1722-1734) and then for Peterborough (1734-1761).

When Edward died in 1761, she left Venice for England. She arrived back in London in January 1762, and died on 21 August 1762.

A monument to Lady Mary was erected beside the south door in Lichfield Cathedral in 1789 by Henrietta Inge, widow of Theodore William Inge (1711-1753) of Thorpe Constantine, near Lichfield. But her only potential family connections with Lichfield that I have been able to trace might have been through her jilted suitor, Clotworthy Skeffington, whose family were buried in Saint Michael’s Church on Greenhill.

Lichfield Cathedral in last week’s mid-September sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)