No 18 Lichfield Street, a coffee house, three curious houses and an old school in Tamworth

No 18, an interesting Coffee House and Wine Bar on Lichfield Street in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

Nos 17, 18 and 19 Lichfield Street are Grade II listed buildings on the south side of Lichfield Street, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

Was the gabled facade of No 17 Lichfield Street (left) once part of a private chapel in the original grounds of the Moat House? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

The Moat House on Lichfield Street … did the Comberford family once have a private chapel? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

Part of the ground floor of No 19 has become part of the coffee shop and wine bar at No 18 Lichfield Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

Calders describe No 19 Lichfield Street, Tamworth, as a ‘rare and unusual opportunity’ but the house needs complete restoration and refurbishment (Photograph: Calders, Tamworth)

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.

No 18 Coffee House and Wine Bar at 18 Lichfield Street, Tamworth, is open seven days a week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Lent 2025: 34, Monday 7 April 2025

Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery (Guercino, 1621, Dulwich Picture Gallery)

Patrick Comerford

We are now in the last two weeks of Lent, and this week began with the Fifth Sunday in Lent (Lent V), sometimes still known as Passion Sunday.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

A modern icon of Aghia Magdalini or Saint Mary Magdalene by Alexandra Kaouki in her workshop in Rethymnon … Mary Magdalene has been identified wrongly for centuries with the woman in John 8 (Photograph © Alexandra Kaouki)

John 8: 1-11 (NRSVA):

[[(7: 53 Then each of them went home,) 8: 1 while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ 11 She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’]]

‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’ (John 8: 7, AV) … stones and rocks on the beach at Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

As we read this morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (John 8: 1-11), two points are worth keeping in mind.

Firstly, as we approach Holy Week and Easter, it is worth remembering how Saint Mary Magdalene, who is an intimate witness to some of the most important events in the life of Christ, including his Crucifixion, burial and Resurrection, has been wrongly identified in tradition with the unnamed woman in this passage.

Mary Magdalene is mentioned by name 12 times in the canonical gospels, more than most of the apostles. In all four gospels, she is a witness to the crucifixion, in the three Synoptic Gospels she is also present at his burial, and all four gospels identify her, either alone or as a member of a larger group of women, as the first witness to the empty tomb, and the first person to testify to the Resurrection. She is often referred to as the ‘apostle to the apostles’.

Secondly, it should be noted, the earliest manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not include John 7: 53 to John 8: 11 in the Fourth Gospel. Many early manuscripts omit this story, and there is some confusion about where it belongs.

This periscope is not found in its canonical place in any of the earliest surviving Greek Gospel manuscripts. It is not found in the two third century papyrus witnesses to John, P66 and P75. Nor is it found in the fourth century Codex Sinaiticus or the Codex Vaticanus. However, all four manuscripts appear to acknowledge the existence of the passage through the use diacritical marks at the spot.

The first surviving Greek manuscript to contain the pericope is the Codex Bezae, in Latin Greek, dating from the late fourth or early fifth century.

Many scholars continue to defend the Johannine authorship of these verses. However, while almost all modern translations now include the pericope adultera at John 7: 53 to 8: 11, some place it in brackets, and some add a note about the oldest and most reliable witnesses.

Yet, this passage contains two of the best known sayings of Jesus: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’ (AV, verse 7b) and ‘Go and sin no more’ (AV, verse 11). In the NRSV and NIV there are less memorable versions: ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,’ and ‘Go your way, and from now on do not sin again’ (NRSV) or ‘Let anyone of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,’ and ‘Go now and leave your life of sin’ (NIV).

The literary influences of this passage reflect how well-loved and well-known it is. Where would we be if we without being able to draw a line in the sand? Who would I accuse if I had permission to throw the first stone? How reckless might each of us be without the admonition to sin no more? Or how guilty might we feel, constantly, without the assurance that we are no longer condemned?

The disciples had gone up on their own for the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths) in Jerusalem, as we read on Friday (4 April 2025, see John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-30), and there they were joined unexpectedly by Jesus half-way through the Feast. Now they have gone home without him, leaving Jesus alone, and on his own he goes to the Mount of Olives.

He returns to Jerusalem, and begins teaching in the Temple courts once again. There a trap is set for him by an unholy alliance of Scribes and Pharisees in the form of an apparently honest request for help in pursuing justice. However, we can see in verse 6 that the Scribes and the Pharisees are not interested in justice – their only interest is in trapping Jesus.

Adultery was regarded as a capital crime (see Leviticus 20: 10). This seems horrifying to our minds today, but remember how the Mosaic Law was tough on crimes against people, relationships, and the family unit, while other contemporary law codes were tough instead on crime against property. This difference in emphasis (people or things) indicates different value systems.

Now Jesus is caught in a dilemma: if he agrees with the Mosaic Law and calls for the execution of this woman, he could be accused of sedition, for the Romans had taken away the Jews’ right of capital punishment.

On the other hand, if he says she should not be stoned, he faces an accusations of false teaching and could be discredited among the people, who would also prefer harsh punishment for proven criminals.

When Jesus bends down and starts to write in the sand, he might be seen as stalling for time. Yet, he has not been caught off guard in the past.

However, Jewish civil law had very strict conditions under which adultery was punishable by execution. It required that those accused of adultery should be caught in the act (Numbers 5: 13). Rabbi Samuel says: ‘In the case of adulterers, they [the witnesses] must have seen them in the posture of adulterers.’ Another Talmudic scholar says: ‘[It is not just an issue] of their having seen the couple in a “compromising situation,” for example, coming from a room in which they were alone, or even lying together on the same bed. The actual physical movements of the couple must have been capable of no other explanation, and the witnesses must have seen exactly the same acts at exactly the same time, in the presence of each other, so that their depositions would be identical in every respect.’

But the law also demanded that both parties should be brought forward and prosecuted (Deuteronomy 22: 22). Well, it does take two to commit adultery.

If the woman has been caught in adultery, then where is the man? The whole story could have been fabricated. Perhaps the woman has been set up so she can be used to discredit Jesus. Did one of them solicit her, and then others burst in on a pre-arranged signal, let the man go and drag the unfortunate woman before Jesus?

If so, then they too are accessories to the crime and guilty of adultery themselves.

What did Jesus write in the sand? According to several later manuscripts, verse 8 includes the words: ‘he wrote the sins of each of them’ (see Jeremiah 17: 13). But most readings leave us not knowing. Yet, whatever he wrote did not set them back in their intentions, for they kept on questioning him.

So, despite the popular dramatised portrayal of this story, what Jesus said to them is more important than what he wrote on the ground (see verse 7b): Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

As the men slowly slip away, the woman is left looking at Jesus, and the crowd is still looking on. She has been publicly humiliated, she has been in danger of losing her life, and now her accusers have faded away while she is left embarrassingly in front of Jesus and in front of everyone else.

The response of Jesus to her is very different to the response she must have expected. She does not deny her sinfulness. She simply admits there is no-on there to condemn her. And neither does Jesus condemn her.

He does not say she has not sinned. He accepts her. He loves her. He simply requests that she should sin no more. She makes no apology, and he expects none. This is not about apologies. This is about divine forgiveness, and she receives it and receives the gift of life.

In a real sense, this woman is each and every one of us. We too receive the unrestrained mercy of Christ.

The woman has sinned, she makes no effort to deny or conceal this, and she stands humbly before Christ. Subsequently he extends to her the divine forgiveness that we are all in need of in our lives.

When we read Gospel stories, we often like to think we would behave like Jesus. We ask the WWJD question: ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ But when I read this story, I often find myself identifying both with the woman and with the people. So often I can feel I am being unfairly accused and unfairly judged by others … but if they really knew what was in my heart at times, what would they think of me? And so often I can rush to judgment about others without realising and accepting my own weaknesses, my innate faults, my own sinfulness.

It is right that we are not too quick to judge and it is certainly right that we do not put God to the test as the Pharisees tried to do to Jesus. But neither is it a matter of condoning wrongful behaviour, or turning a blind eye to sin – especially in our own lives. It is a matter of recognising our sinfulness and placing our humble trust in Christ before whom we must all be judged.

This woman places herself fully and completely at the mercy of God. The NRSV translation ‘Sir’ in verse 11 may appear like a polite Americanism. But it misses the potential that is in the original Greek of seeing her making a confession in Jesus as ‘Lord’ when she says: Οὐδείς, κύριε.

Let us then hide nothing from him but turn towards him with all our hearts for forgiveness and by our example encourage others to do the same.

How do I respond when other people come to me with gossip and stories about the sins or lifestyle of others?

Are there some people who find forgiveness difficult to receive in the Church?

In many modern translations, this passage appears to say nothing about the woman’s faith. Do you think there is a necessary connection between faith and the assurance of God’s forgiveness?

What does Jesus write in the sand? … a heart in the sand in Bray, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 7 April 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Healthcare in Bangladesh.’ This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update by Suvojit Mondal, Programme Director for the Church of Bangladesh Community Healthcare Programme in Dhaka.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 7 April 2025, World Health Day) invites us to pray:

Pray for the continued success and outreach of the Church of Bangladesh Community Healthcare Programme, as it strives to reach the most marginalised communities, ensuring they receive the medical care and support they need.

The Collect:

Most merciful God,
who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
delivered and saved the world:
grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross
we may triumph in the power of his victory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ,
you have taught us
that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters
we do also for you:
give us the will to be the servant of others
as you were the servant of all,
and gave up your life and died for us,
but are alive and reign, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Gracious Father,
you gave up your Son
out of love for the world:
lead us to ponder the mysteries of his passion,
that we may know eternal peace
through the shedding of our Saviour’s blood,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Mary Magdalene at Easter … a sculpture by Mary Grant at the west door of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org