Citylife in Lichfield February 2020

Hidden Spaces
The Cellars of
Burlington House
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The stories of the tunnels that run under the streets of
Lichfield are well known, whether based on truth or
rumour, but there is another underground story to be
told about Lichfield – that of the cellars that are under the
floorboards of many of the shops and businesses on the city
streets. Jono Oates goes ‘down below’ at ES Jewellery on
Tamworth Street to view the cellars that belong to numbers
1 and 3 and to find out who may have used them in the past.
As I walked down the steps to the cellars, I left the bright lights of the
shop behind me and stepped into the relative darkness of the
underground storerooms of shops and houses dating back to the middle
of the 19th century. The shop is made up of two original houses, numbers
1 and 3 Tamworth Street, with the former being on the junction of
Conduit Street. Over the years the properties were sometimes inhabited
by individual businesses, but at other times were combined to form one.
The buildings have a Georgian design to them but were both rebuilt in
the 1860s in the height of the Victorian era. The individual cellars of each
property are linked by a small gap in the dividing walls – but luckily, at 5-
foot 5-inches tall, I was able to get through the gap easily to discover the
far side of the underground storage!
There are recesses in the walls and a brick-built structure in the
storeroom under number 1, although it is not known what these were
used for. It was, naturally, cool in the cellars and I could hear the noise of
the conversations, and footsteps, of the customers and staff in the shop
above my head. But who else might have walked down those steps in
years gone past?
In 1850 number 3 was a private residence lived in by Mr James Blood,
a maltster involved in the brewing trade. Numbers 1, 3 and 5 Tamworth
Street were all home, at various times during the 1860s and 1870s, to
Charlotte and Mary Gilbert, two sisters who owned a confectionary
shop. They also provided a base for Mr J Brierley, a dentist from Burton
on Trent, who visited the shop every Tuesday and Friday to hold a surgery.
He offered to use nitrous oxide (laughing) gas to provide the ‘safest of
anaesthetics for the extraction of teeth without pain.’ Ironically the teeth
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that he extracted had probably been ruined by the sweets and candy at
the sisters’ confectionary shop!
Number 1 was home to several agricultural seeds salesmen and was
owned by Walter Little in 1887 who provided the best selection of
swedes and turnips. He was also an agent for Little’s Patent Fluid Sheep
Dip, which was ‘non-poisonous’ and sold for 7 shillings and six old pence
for a gallon.
By 1907 number 1 was known as Burlington House and was home to
a milliner, firstly to Misses Butler and Holmes who, in that year, wanted
to employ ‘good Skirt and Bodice Hands’ as well as apprentices. Later
owners were Amy Palmer and Phyllis George who both provided dress
making services through to the 1950s.