Pipehill

The civil pareish of Wall, south-west of Lichfield, was originally a township in St. Michael parish, Lichfield, 631a. in area. It was adjoined on the north by Pipehill, also a township in St. Michael's and partly in the City of Lichfield.

Pipe-Hill a township, in the parish of St. Michael, union of Lichfield, S. division of the hundred of Offlow, and of the county of Stafford, 1¾ miles (S.W.) from Lichfield on the road to Walsall; containing 110 inhabitants. Here is a Roman station extending to Wall, and coins have been found a mile distant. Pipe is a very ancient manor and constablewick, no fewer than nine contiguous hamlets being members within its jurisdiction. The township comprises 506 acres of land, in equal portions of arable and meadow, with a little wood; the surface is undulating, the scenery pretty, and the Birmingham canal passes through. The principal proprietors are the Earl of Lichfield and Mrs. Mary Bradburne of Pipe Place. [Samuel Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of England 1859]

Pipehill Farm and a former tollhouse became part of Pipehill. Pipehill covered 576 a. In 1894 that part of Pipehill township which lay in the city of Lichfield was transferred to the civil parish of St. Michael; the rest of Pipehill was added to Wall, creating a new civil parish of 1,019 a. This article deals with Wall and Pipehill according to the boundaries established in 1879, but excluding the Lichfield portion of Pipehill. Pipehill's boundary on the north followed the upper reaches of Leamonsley (or Pipe) brook. Most of the eastern part of Pipehill township was included in Lichfield city, apparently by the mid 17th century. In 1666 Pipehill had 10 people assessed for hearth tax and the population was 95.

The figures for Pipehill in 1811, 1821, and 1831, which probably included people living in the Lichfield portion of the township, were respectively 110, 92, and 110. The population, excluding the Lichfield portion, was 94 in 1841, 92 in 1851, 106 in 1861, 98 in 1871, and 119 in 1881. The population of Wall and Pipehill together was 284 in 1901, 306 in 1911, and 330 in 1921; it had fallen to 292 by 1931 and 271 by 1951. The population of the much enlarged civil parish was 397 in 1961, 401 in 1971, and 368 in 1981.

Pipehill hamlet lies where the Lichfield-Walsall road crosses one from Burntwood to Lichfield and Wall, formerly an area of waste known as Pipe Marsh. The hamlet was known as Hardwick or Pipe Hardwick in the 14th century, a name still used in the early 17th century and meaning a livestock farm. The site of Pipehill Farm on the south-west edge of the waste was occupied in the mid 14th century and the present farmhouse is partly medieval. Pipe Hill House to the south dates from the mid 18th century but replaces an house in existence by the later 17th century. The site of Pipe Grange north of Pipehill Farm was occupied in the Middle Ages; the present house dates mainly from the 18th and early 19th century. Hill Top Farm to the north was built c. 1800. Pipe Place Farm, south-west of Pipehill hamlet, dates from 1764. Five families were living at Pipe Marsh in the 1840s, and the number increased with the construction in 1878 of a row of six houses called Denmark Villas. In contrast to Wall hamlet, where most of the working inhabitants were farm labourers in the late 19th century, several Pipehill householders were then artisans: the population of 45 in 1881 included a bricklayer, a carpenter, a boot and shoe maker, a coal miner, and two laundresses. ['Townships: Wall with Pipehill', A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14: Lichfield (1990)]