From at least the mid 19th century, until the 1970s, the neighbouring building was The Acorn public house, now the name of this Wetherspoon pub. Although only a small city, Lichfield has a remarkable reputation as the birthplace or home town of famous men and women, particularly in the literary field, where one name towers above all others.

Text about The Acorn Inn

The text reads: This Wetherspoon free house is part of a development built on the site of Nos. 12–18 Tamworth Street. In the 1870s, No. 12 was a grocer. At one time, No. 16 housed a cycle-maker and a garage, whilst No. 18 was in use as a bakery and a greengrocer. No. 18 (later No. 20) was The Acorn, which has given its name to these premises.

A painting of Erasmus Darwin, and a copy of The Temple of Nature

The text reads:

Organic life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born & nursd in ocean’s pearly caves:
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom.
New powers acquire & larger limbs assume:
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin & feet & wing.

External photograph of the building – main entrance