PAT Testing in Lichfield

Lichfield, a cathedral city just north of Birmingham. The earliest evidence of settlement is middle stone age flints found on the high ground of the cemetary at St. Michael on Greenhill. Lichfield in the 1600’s acted as a coaching trade-off on the busy route between London and Chester, this made it Staffordshire’s most prosperous town. It acted still as a busy coaching city throughout the 1800’s with it being on the main routes from the north-west of the country to London, Birmingham and to the north-east of the country.

Lichfield fell out of date at the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and railways as it was not experiencing as much coaching traffic as it used to. It especially fell behind its rapidly growing neighbours of the time, Birmingham. After the second world war saw Lichfield’s next large growth period with the council investing in many new houses in the area from the 1960’s to the late 1980’s including the large housing estate at Boley Park. This therefore saw the city’s population triple from 1951 to 1989.

Today Lichfield has a number of light industrial areas, predominantly in the east of the city, which is not dominated by one particular industry. The district’s two most famous local manufacturers are Armitage Shanks (makes of baths/bidets and showers), and Arthur Prince of England (master cutlers and silversmiths). But most residents from Lichfield commute to Birmingham.