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Home > Travel Europe > Europe Destinations > Lichfield
Lichfield
Europe is one of the five inhabited traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, and to the southeast by the waterways adjoining the Mediterranean to and including the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains. On the east, Europe is divided from Asia by the water divide of the Ural Mountains and by the Caspian Sea. Europe is the world's second-smallest continent in terms of area and third-largest continent after Asia and Africa in population.
Lichfield is a small city and civil parish in Staffordshire, 110 miles northwest of London and 14 miles north of Birmingham. It is famous for its three-spired cathedral and as the birthplace of Dr. Johnson, the writer of the first Dictionary of the English Language. Today it still retains its old importance as an ecclesiastical centre, but its industrial development is relatively small. The centre of the city thus retains an essentially old-world character, with pockets of historic charm and attractiveness. It is the main town in the Lichfield district. The population of the district according to the 2001 census is 93,237 of the city itself 27,900.
At Wall, 3 miles to the south of the present city, there was a Romano-British village called Letocetum , from which the first half of the name Lichfield is derived. It was based on a Roman fort next to Watling Street which was used in the first centuries AD, until about AD 160 to 170, when the fort's mansio was destroyed by fire at the same time the forum in Wroxeter was also destroyed by fire. This suggests a revolt of the local British. The history of Lichfield in the following centuries is obscure. The Historia Britonum lists the city as one of the 28 cities of Britain. In the Welsh poem The Lament of Cynddylan, Caer Luytcoed or Lichfield is said to have been taken by the sword by pagan opponents, most likely the Mercians to the east.
Lichfield's wealth grew along with its importance as an ecclesiastical centre. The original settlement prospered as the place where pilgrims gathered to worship at the shrine of St Chad, this practise continued up until the Reformation when the shrine was destroyed.
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