Whittington, Staffordshire

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Whittington from the north showing St.Giles Church on the left and the heath in the distance on the right

Whittington is a village and civil parish which lies approximately 3 miles south east of Lichfield in the Lichfield district of Staffordshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 2,591. The Coventry Canal borders the village to the north and east. The village has a 13th century church dedicated to St. Giles, however the building was destroyed in 1760 by fire and was rebuilt in Georgian style using sandstone quarried from Hopwas Hayes wood.

Most famous for the military barracks there known as the Lichfield Army Training Regiment. Construction of the Barracks for the Depots of the two Regiments and for a Militia Battalion (of which there were four in the county) started in 1877. During the Second World War, Whittington Barracks was essentially handed over to the US Army to serve as their 10th Replacement Depot.

Whittington is also home to The Staffordshire Regimental Museum.

One family produced three vicars of Whittington: the Levett family. Rev. Richard Levett served as vicar from 1743 to 1751. His son, also Rev. Richard Levett, served as vicar of Whittington from 1795 to 1796. And Rev. Thomas Levett served for forty years, from 1796 to 1836.^[1] Large landowners, the family also established charitable gifts towards the Whittington Free School.^[2]^[3]^[4]

To the west and south of the village lies Whittington Heath. The heath was the originally the site of the Lichfield races which had moved from Fradley in 1702. During the 18th century they were one of the largest and well attended meeting in the Midlands, in 1773 a grandstand was erected near the Lichfield-Tamworth Road. However during the course of the 19th century the popularity of the races dwindled, and military use of the heath grew. In 1875, the Marquess of Anglesey was approached by the War Department and asked if he would sell Whittington Heath for the building of a barracks, to which he agreed. October 29th 1880 was the date recorded as the formal handing over of the newly built barrack to the military. In 1895 the last race meeting was held when the war office declared it was "undesirable to hold a race meeting at the gate of the barracks.". The Lichfield races are still remembered the name of a local pub in Freeford called the Horse & Jockey. In Lichfield, there is another pub called "The Scales" was where the race jockeys were "weighed in".

The old grandstand originally became a soldiers home, although it is now the base of the Whittington Heath Golf Course. Golf had been played in the area as the Whittington Barracks Golf Course since 1910 but the land was not brought out from the area until 1994.

The co-founder of Marks & Spencer plc, Thomas Spencer d. 1905, is buried in St. Giles Church, Whittington.