Wall

Wall a hamlet, in the parish of St. Michael, Lichfield, union of Lichfield, S. division of the hundred of Offlow, and of the county of Stafford, 2½ miles (S. S. W.) from Lichfield; containing 91 inhabitants. The Rev. Burnes Floyer gave a piece of land for the site of a district church, and John Smith, Esq., £500 towards the building; it was erected in 1843, at a cost of about £1400, and is a neat edifice with a bell-tower. The church is dedicated to St. John, and the living is in the gift of Incumbent of St. Michael’s. There is a day and Sunday school. The hamlet is intersected by the Watling-street, and is the ancient Roman station Letocetum, of which many vestiges may still be traced in the walls. [Samuel Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of England 1859]

The civil parish of Wall, south-west of Lichfield, was originally a township in St. Michael's parish, Lichfield, 631 a. in area. It was djoined on the north by Pipehill, also a township in St. Michael's and partly in the city of Lichfield, covering 580 a. In 1879 a detached portion of Pipehill at Muckley Corner, comprising Muckley Corner hotel and the nearby limekilns, was transferred to Wall. Wall then covered 645 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. There were further boundary changes in 1934 when 93 a. of Burntwood parish, including Pipe Grange Farm, Hilltop Farm, and the fish ponds at Maple Hayes, were added to Wall. In 1957 the parish was increased to 1,809 a. (731 ha.) by the addition of 696 a. from Shenstone. On the south-west Wall's boundary followed the Lichfield-Walsall road to Muckley Corner. An area of waste called Wall Butts on the south side of Watling Street at Muckley Corner was included in the township. 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 Wall had 12 people assessed for hearth tax. In 1801 Wall's population was 97. The figure for Wall was 84 in 1821, 91 in 1841, and 96 in 1851. A fall to 87 by 1861 was followed by rises to 101 by 1871 and 115 by 1881.

Although flints dating from the Neolithic period have been found at the upper part of Wall hamlet, the first detailed evidence of settlement comes from the 1st century A.D. A Roman fort was probably established at Wall in or soon after 50 A.D. to accommodate Legio XIV, then advancing towards Wales. A fort was certainly built in the area of the upper part of the hamlet later in the 50s or 60s, and Watling Street was constructed to the south in the 70s. A bath house was built on the lower ground south-west of the fort in the late 1st century for use by soldiers; it was later used by the inhabitants of a civilian settlement which developed along Watling Street. In the 2nd century the settlement covered c. 30 a. west of the later Wall Lane. By the 1st or early 2nd century there was a burial area beyond the western end of the settlement. In the late 3rd or early 4th century the eastern part of the settlement, covering c. 6 a. between the later Wall Lane and Green Lane and straddling Watling Street, was enclosed with a stone wall surrounded by an earth rampart and ditches. Civilians continued to live inside the settlement and on its outskirts in the late 4th and possibly in the 5th century. The excavated site of the bath house and a museum were conveyed to the National Trust in 1934 and are open to the public under the management of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission. ['Townships: Wall with Pipehill', A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14: Lichfield (1990)]

Wall, a township and a chapelry in Lichfield-St. Michael parish, Stafford. The township lies on Watling-street, 2¼ miles SSW of Lichfield r. station; and includes the site of the Roman Letocetum, where Roman bricks and pavements, and other Roman remains have been found. Pop., 87. Houses, 19. The chapelry was constituted in 1845. Post town, Lichfield. Pop, 243. Houses, 45. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Lichfield. Value, £53. Patron, the Rector of St. Michael. (John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales 1870 - 1872)]

Statistics for the Wall 2001 Census provided by the Office for National Statistics

Learn all about the Roman period in Wall's history by visiting the National Trust website for Letocetum Roman Baths and Museum

The Church of England website for Saint John the Baptist Church

The B F H G has photographed and transcribed all the names on the Wall War Memorial

Paupers in need of assistance from Wall would have been examined and assessed, and if they met the criteria, they would have been admitted to Lichfield Workhouse. Learn a little of the history of the Lichfield Workhouse.