Whittington, United Kingdom

The mesne-lords in the 16th century were the Clerkson family, whose female heir married into the Everard family. By the 17th century the Babington family owned large tracts of land in the area and built a grand mansion at nearby Packington Hall which passed by marriage to the Levett family. The Dyott family who were major land owners in the village in the 18th and 19th centuries, lived at nearby Freeford Hall.

In 1741, Sarah Neal left her house and croft in Whittington to start a school for poor children of the village. Funds were augmented when the Reverend Richard Levett died in 1802, leaving a legacy and in 1864, a handsome gothic building for a girls' and infants' school was built by Lieut.-Col. Richard Dyott. Village children continued to be educated here until 1968 when a new school was built in Common Lane.

During the 18th century Whittington Heath was the site of the Lichfield Races, one of the largest and well attended horse racing meetings in the Midlands. A grandstand was erected in 1773 near the Lichfield-Tamworth Road, however, by the 19th century the popularity of the races dwindled, and military use of the heath grew.

Under the Cardwell Reforms of the army, the War Office approached the Marquess of Anglesey in 1875 to buy the heath for the building of Whittington Barracks. 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 on Whittington Heath in 1877. 1881 was the date recorded as the formal handing over of the newly built barracks to the military.

The Lichfield Races are remembered in the names of pubs called the Horse & Jockey and in Lichfield, The Scales which was where jockeys were "weighed in". The old grandstand became a soldiers home before it was purchased in 1957 by Whittington Heath Golf Course as its clubhouse.

In the late 1970s the vicar of Whittington, Reverend Paul Brothwell became concerned about the quality of care available in local hospitals to patients with terminal illnesses. St Giles Hospice was established in 1983 on the site of the old Vicarage, it has since grown to become a major institution for palliative care in the Midlands.