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 the link between the Festival and the Cathedral. The closure of Lichfield Civic Hall in 2001 led to the use of venues including Sutton Coldfield Town Hall during the festivals of 2002/2003, while film screenings were moved to the theatre at the Friary School in Lichfield. In 2003 the Lichfield Garrick theatre, which had arisen quite literally from the ashes of the Civic Hall, was opened on the same night as that year's Festival, with a performance by the Jazz Jamaica All-Stars. After a short three-year stint at Lichfield, Bowen left to take up a position with Aldeburgh Productions, and