Haden Hill Park History

In 1877 Mr. George Alfred Haden Best inherited the Haden-Barrs estates. Adjacent to the western side of the 17^th century Hall, the ancestral home of the Haden family, he constructed a modern Victorian House with the main door in the south east corner of the front elevation. In the fullness of time, when his widowed aunt Mary Barrs passed away, he intended to demolish the Hall and extend his House so that the door would occupy a central position. However, by the time of Mary’s demise in 1904 Mr. Best was about 65 and he had long abandoned his plans to enlarge the front of his House. In 1897 he extended the western end of the House in a northerly direction resulting in a ‘L’ shaped plan.

At the same time as the House was being built Mr. Best began to convert 35 acres (14.2 hectares) of land to the south of the building to parkland. In it there was a grotto, picnic house, summer house and hermitage and other ‘follies’ all linked by a network of paths. In addition he added water features such as pools, fountains and a stream with cascades.

On 6 October 1921 Mr. Best passed away. A Purchase Committee, chaired by Harry Lench, was formed to raise funds to buy the Park and in spite of difficult economic conditions in the aftermath of the Great War the townsfolk and industrialists of Rowley Regis gave generously and a sum of £10,779 was donated. All the money was collected by two brothers, Joseph and Lyttleton Perry, who it was claimed wore out much shoe leather tramping around Rowley Regis. The Park was purchased for the sum of about £8,500. At a time of severe unemployment many out-of-work men, unable to make a cash donation, gave of their time and skills to carry out tasks such as “repairing the hermitage” and “cleaning and painting the fountain”.

At 3.00 pm on Saturday 14 October 1922 on the House terrace the deeds to the Park were handed over by the Purchase Committee to John Shaw, chairman of Rowley Regis Urban District Council. John was also married to Alice Cockin; the adopted daughter of Mr Haden Best.

On the following Saturday, 21 October a grand civic opening of the Park took place. This involved four marching bands – Old Hill Victoria, Cradley Heath Town, Blackheath Excelsior and Blackheath Salvation Army. The official opening was carried out by John Shaw who on opening the wooden gates said, “I have much pleasure in declaring the Park open to the public for their use forever”. An estimated 5,000 people then strolled around their park for the first time.

By the end of the century the Park needed a spruce up and on 26 April 1999 Sandwell Council signed a contract with the trustees of the National Heritage Memorial Fund for a National Lottery Grant to redevelop Haden Hill Park. The grant was worth £2,151,140 . A wall plaque in the foyer of the House records that the completion date was 29 July 2008.

On 28 April 2004 Haden Hill Park was awarded a Green Flag for the season 2004/2005. It was the first park in Sandwell to receive this accolade.

[photo 1]

This photograph was taken c1946. The pond on the left probably dates back to when the 17^th century hall was being built. Itinerant brickies dug out the clay so leaving a hollow, called a ‘borrow pit’, that filled up with rainwater. The clay was fired in clamps or kilns on site to make the bricks. Today the pond is topped up with rainwater that falls on the roof of the Victorian House. It is collected in a sump and then transported though a culvert to the pond.

In 2021 a picnic area and toddlers’ play area were laid out on the site of the bowling green.

[photo 2]

This photograph was taken in the days of Mr. Best’s private park. The mermaid fountain is still in situ. When the public park was opened in 1922 the ornamental glasshouses were demolished and a bowling green was laid out. Today a car park occupies the land that was formerly a bowling green.

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