Lichfield St Michael in 1817

Description from A Topographical History of Staffordshire by William Pitt (1817)

LICHFIELD ST MICHAEL.

St. Michael's Church is situated on the summit of Green-hill, at the south-east extremity of Lichfield. It is an ancient edifice of stone, with a high spire, erected in the reign of Henry VII. who rebuilt several churches, which had been demolished during a long and destructive civil war.

The elevated and solitary spot on which this church stands, with the great extent of its cemetery, which is the principal burial-place belonging to the city, and includes a space of nearly seven acres in extent, have a tendency to tranquillize the mind of the observer, and prepare it for serious meditation.

A walk, paved with white pebbles, and shaded by a grove, leads to the principal entrance. In 1593, part of the spire was blown down by a tempest. The interior of this edifice is adorned with many monuments and inscriptions.

St. Michael's is a perpetual curacy, in the presentation of the vicar of St. Mary's. The church-yard commands an extensive prospect, and the public walks from it through the fields on the south-east side of the city are very pleasant, to the summit of that celebrated mount Borrowcop Hill, of undoubted Saxon origin, and described by most antiquaries as a tumulus, and the site of a Saxon fort.

A small edifice, with seats, has been erected by subscription on the top of this hill; and from this lofty eminence may be seen, in a clear day, many delightful prospects of the circumjacent country, which presents the diversified scenery of magnificent villas, neat farm-houses, cheerful villages, fertile and highly-cultivated hills and valleys, and all the beauties of the English landscape, where "Town and village, dome and farm, Each gives to each a double charm."

Borrowcop-hill also commands a full view of the race-ground on Whittington Heath, and the stand erected for the accommodation of the nobility and gentry who visit Lichfield races annually in the month of September. Indeed the prospect is so extensive, varied, and picturesque, as to excite the admiration of every visitor, who will be amply repaid for the toil of ascending this eminence, by a view from its summit of a considerable part of the counties of Warwick, Salop, Stafford, Derby, Nottingham, and Leicester; the churches of Burton, Seckington, Lullington, Clifton-Camville, Whittington, Shenstone, and Lichfield, especially that superlatively grand object in the fore-ground, the magnificent Cathedral, while the south-west view of St Michael's on the opposite eminence, the tower of St. Chad's, and the turret of St. Mary's, harmonize in presenting a highly-picturesque view of the city and its environs.