Evidence of previous habitation of the area is found in
Bronze Age burial mounds in a field on Stakenbridge Lane which were excavated in the 18th century, and the later
Iron Age hill fort on
Wychbury Hill. A Roman
salt road running from
Droitwich crossed the Hagley parish to the west and there have been discoveries of Roman pottery and a coin hoard in the area. But the earliest written reference to the village is as Hageleia in the Domesday Book, when it formed part of the Clent
Hundred, later to be amalgamated into the
Halfshire Hundred. The name of the village is conjectured to derive from the
Old English haggalēah meaning '
haw wood/clearing', or
Haecgalēah meaning 'Haecga's wood/clearing'. De Hagley lords of the manor first appeared in 1130, a connection lasting until 1411. Intermittent ownership followed until the 1590s, when members of the
Lyttelton family took up residence, a connection that has lasted until the present day. Among these,
Sir John Lyttelton was implicated in
Essex's Rebellion and his brother
Humphrey was hanged, drawn and quartered for sheltering men involved in the
Gunpowder Plot on his Hagley estate, including his nephew Stephen. The most notable member of the family was the statesman and poet
George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, who landscaped the grounds at Hagley and replaced the old half-timbered hall with the present
Palladian mansion. His brother
Charles, eventually Bishop of Carlisle, was also born at Hagley and was buried there in the family church of St John the Baptist. Another of the family,
William Henry, served as rector there from 1847 to 1884.
Churches The Domesday Book recorded that Hagley had a priest. The original wooden church dedicated to Saint John the Baptist was eventually rebuilt in stone under the De Hagley family, of which there are still traces. These include a mediaeval tomb, now incorporated into the north wall; a stone with an incised lion set into the back wall of the
lady chapel; and two sandstone angels added to the 19th-century porch. From 1747 dates
Louis-François Roubiliac’s memorial to Lucy Lyttelton; there is also an oval immersion font from this period, which was discarded after the virtual rebuilding of the church in Gothic style by
George Edmund Street in the second half of the 19th century. It was then too that a red sandstone tower and spire were added to the building. While the church of St John the Baptist served the old village of Hagley, the development of West Hagley after the coming of the railway initiated the building of an overspill Mission church there in 1882, after which Church Street is named. In 1906 it was replaced by St Saviour’s Church on the corner of Park Road and Worcester Road. This consists of a towerless stone-built nave and chancel in what
Nikolaus Pevsner describes as "uninspired"
Perpendicular style and has a series of windows by
Francis Skeat. There was also a nearby
Primitive Methodist chapel, which gave Chapel Street its name. Built in 1857, it was replaced in 1905 by the Free Church now on Worcester Road, whose new building continues to play a central role in the community. This union (non-denominational) church was the second such in the country.
Rural industry Three watercourses starting from the slopes of the Clent Hills run through the village: Hagley Brook, rising within the bounds of
Hagley Park; Gallows Brook, dividing the former parish boundaries of Clent and Hagley; and Clent Brook, on which lay the former Spout Mill, near where the Worcester and Kidderminster roads diverge south of the village. The brooks combined lower down to create Sweetpool (now encroached on by the railway line and silted up); beyond that was the 18th-century Brake Mill, where the stream was dammed to create the mill pool. Before the boundary changes of 1888, a number of ironworking mills established further downstream during the
Industrial Revolution gave Hagley an industrial hinterland. Apart from the abortive Wassell Grove colliery opened during 1866–7, there was little heavy industry in the area. There is early evidence of glass-making in the village but this was probably only a cottage industry. The inhabitants were predominantly engaged in agriculture; thirteen farms are recorded in the 18th century, eighteen in the early 20th, although by the end of it only two remained. The soil is sandy and poor, so there was a greater emphasis on livestock than on arable farming. Hagley had a cattle market by 1600, located just south of the road junction between the Hagley road [to Stourbridge] (A491) and the Birmingham road (A456). This was extended in both the 18th and 19th centuries and was served by the railway until the market closed in the 1960s. ==Landmarks==