Hagley

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Hagley
Hagley (Worcestershire)
Hagley

Hagley shown within Worcestershire
Population 5,600 (approx.)
District Bromsgrove
Shire county Worcestershire
Region West Midlands
Constituent country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town STOURBRIDGE
Postcode district DY9
Dialling code 01562
Police West Mercia
Fire Hereford and Worcester
Ambulance West Midlands
European Parliament West Midlands
UK Parliament Bromsgrove
List of places: UK • England • Worcestershire

Coordinates: 52°26′N 2°07′W / 52.43, -2.12

Hagley is a large village on the northern boundary of Worcestershire, England, near to the towns of Kidderminster and Stourbridge. It has a population of about 5,600, of which about 1,300 actually live in the adjacent parish of Clent.

Hagley is attached to Stourbridge and thus the urban Black Country and lies beneath the Clent Hills. The village is served by its own train station on the Kidderminster - Birmingham line.

It is on the Birmingham to Kidderminster road, the A456, which is known as the Hagley Road in Birmingham, because it was once administered by a turnpike trust, whose responsibilities ended there.

Despite having a population larger then some towns, Hagley lacks the essential characteristics of a market town. While it has a healthy shopping street and many local services, it is a fundamentally unbalanced community economically, in that there is little local employment (other than in local services). However, unemployment is low because of the ease of commuting to work. Accordingly Hagley is essentially a dormitory village. The population of Hagley greatly increased after the arrival of the railway, which enabled people to commute into Birmingham or the adjacent Black Country.

Hagley is known for

  • Hagley Hall, the home for several centuries of the Lyttelton family, whose head is Viscount Cobham, and
  • Wychbury Hill with its 'monument' (an obelisk). The body of "Bella" was found in a wood on the hill, sparking the murder mystery "Who put Bella in the Witch Elm?" about which a play was written by the local drama society.

It accommodates two secondary schools, Hagley Rc High School and Haybridge High School. Hagley RC is known to be built on the site of an old mine once operated by British Steel. There has been a noticeable subsidence in the school field and several of the main buildings, including the main hall are under threat.

Three tragic events during the late 20th century have drawn media attention to Hagley. In June 1983, Susan Renhard, a student at Manchester Polytechnic was murdered in the Peak District at Cave Dale, Castleton. Susan had been brought up in West Hagley and her funeral was held at a local church in July 1983. Then, in January 1988, a 14-year-old newspaper delivery boy - Stuart Gough - was reported missing from the area, and he was found murdered some 20 miles away near Worcester several days later. Serial paedophile Victor Miller later admitted murdering Stuart and was sentenced to life imprisonment - he is still behind bars after almost 20 years and is likely to remain in prison for another decade at least, as his trial judge said that he didn't know whether it would be safe ever to release him. An article in the Daily Telegraph listed Victor Miller as one of 35 murderers that the Home Secretary had recently recommended never to be released from prison. Hagley hit the headlines again in November 1993 when a minibus crash occurred on the M40 motorway involving pupils returning to Hagley Rc High School from a concert in London. Ten pupils and a teacher died at the scene of the crash near Warwick, some 30 miles from Hagley, and the final death toll rose to 12 when two more pupils died in hospital as a result of their injuries. Two girls survived the crash and went on to make a full recovery.[citation needed]

[edit] Famous residents

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