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. Religious sites The church of St Giles was built in the 13th century using sandstone quarried from Hopwas Hayes wood. It was destroyed by fire in 1760, and was rebuilt largely in brick in the Georgian style. The church contains memorial panelling for Samuel Lipscomb Seckham (1827–1900), architect and High Sheriff of Staffordshire, who carried out a major restoration of Whittington Old Hall, in the late 19th century. The Levett family produced three vicars of Whittington, this was due to the fact that Theophilus Levett purchased the advowson of Whittington church from John Cooper of Aldridge in 1735. The ‘right of advowson’ was the archaic right to nominate the position of parish priest. Rev. Richard Levett served as vicar from 1743 to 1751. His son, also Rev. Richard Levett, served as vicar of Whittington from 1795 to 1796 and Rev. Thomas Levett served for forty years, from 1796 to 1836. There are memorials to the