OS Explorer map 232, Nuneaton & Tamworth: Lichfield & Atherstone – I do not own this map, and had not visited it before starting this blog. Visited for this post 26th July 2025. This is the third of three posts about my trip up to the Isle of Harris with Vesper in July 2025.
Map area link. Google maps location links: Eaglesfield, Lichfield, Tamworth, Northampton
My last post told you of the first of two days of mine and Vesper’s journey back down to England from spending two weeks on the Isle of Harris. We visited one new map area on the second day, the Saturday, so that’s what I’ll tell you about now!
As mentioned, we’d originally planned to visit Vesper’s family in Lancashire on the Saturday. While that didn’t end up happening, we’d already booked to stay overnight well over halfway through the drive back from Harris so that we’d have some time there, meaning that we only had about four hours left to do on the Saturday to reach my parents’ house in Northamptonshire – where we’d return their car, be reunited with our dear cats, and then ask nicely for my parents to drop us home to Moreton-in-Marsh. We made one stop during that drive, in this map area, to visit Lichfield!
The main draw of Lichfield for us was Lichfield Cathedral, so we parked up and walked straight over
I’m always going to want to visit a cathedral, but the specific attraction of Lichfield is that it has a lot of good early medieval stuff. Lichfield has been the seat of a bishop since the 7th century, and is notable as the home of the Lichfield Gospels, a C8th gospel book originally from Wales and including marginal glosses that are some of the earliest examples of Old Welsh; and the Lichfield Angel, a really nice C8th Saxon carved angel that was discovered only around 20 years ago.
The Gospels and the Angel live in the cathedral’s chapter house, which has been made into a little exhibition room.
I also can’t think of the diocese of Lichfield without thinking of this delightfully niche meme from ASNaC Memes for Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic Teens, the old Facebook meme page, sadly no longer active, run by students of the great and odd degree that Vesper and I studied.
This particular meme – credit to Basement Manager – refers to the 780s, when Offa of Mercia, of Dyke fame, as part of his power plays managed to get the authorities in Rome to make Lichfield into an archbishopric, splitting it off from the archbishopric of Canterbury, though that lasted for only 15 years or so. [1]
Also on in the cathedral was a very cool display from the Fenland Black Oak Project, of a 13-metre-long table made from the Jubilee Oak, a 5000-year-old oak tree discovered preserved in peat in Norfolk in 2012, dating from a time when the region was covered in ancient forest.
After that, we had lunch in a café, and walked back through Lichfield to the car. It was a nice town, a great cathedral, and a great stop at the end of a really nice two weeks away! We did the last hour’s drive to my parents’ house, were reunited with our cats in the mid-afternoon, and Father Dearest dropped us back home in Moreton-in-Marsh in the evening.
Previous visits
Now, I’ve never posted about this map area before, because I’d never to my knowledge visited it before starting this blog. However, I have once previously come to this area since starting the blog, I just didn’t count it as a visit or post about it at the time. So I’ll tell you about it now!
In particular, this occasion was on 8th December 2023, when Vesper and I came to the wedding of one of her school friends, in a venue near Tamworth. I’ve posted about Vesper’s childhood home before, which is fairly nearby, just a little further north in map 245.
We travelled up by train from our home in Moreton-in-Marsh, arriving in the late morning, and then whiled away some time in Tamworth having a walk-around and spending some time in a café. The train journey from home is very convenient, actually, in that one can get to Tamworth with just one change at Worcestershire Parkway, travelling from there right through Birmingham and out to Tamworth on the same train, which is the hourly CrossCountry Cardiff-Nottingham service.
From there, we got a taxi out to the wedding venue, and had a good time at the wedding through the afternoon and into the night! We stayed over, and travelled back home the next morning.
[1] It’s not my favourite ever meme from the page though, which would be this one, again with credit to Basement Manager:
Visiting all the maps! 