Lichfield on the main routes from London to the north-west and Birmingham to the north-east. It also became a centre of great intellectual activity, being the home of many famous people including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward; this prompted Johnson's remark that Lichfield was "a city of philosophers". In the 1720s Daniel Defoe described Lichfield as 'a fine, neat, well-built, and indifferent large city', the principal town in the region after Chester. During the late 18th and early 19th century much of the medieval city was rebuilt with the red-brick Georgian style buildings still to be seen
The Lichfield Festival a cappella music with the award winning Voces8. Lichfield Band Red Light Octopus are rumoured to be playing this year's Festival with their first gig since 2009. October 2006 saw the First Lichfield Literature Weekend, a spin-off from the summer Festival. 3 days of talks from authors including John Carey, David Crystal and Robert Hutchinson took place in the city's George Hotel. The Literature Weekend was soon established as an annual fixture in the city's calendar. A minor re-branding exercise saw the event renamed simply Lichfield Literature in 2009. A change motivated in no small part by the expansion in