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 Garrick Inn, Stratford-upon-Avon oldest buildings in Stratford-upon-Avon. It is Grade II* listed, a listing for properties which 'are particularly important buildings of more than special interest.' Restoration of the property took place in around 1912, when a brick front added in about 1800, was replaced. Restoration also took place in 2005. It was previously called The Greyhound, as well as The Reindeer, before its name was changed to The Garrick Inn after the actor David Garrick in 1795. It is thought that a bout of plague may have started within the original inn in 1564 after a weaver's apprentice, Oliver Gunn, died of