A rare opportunity to explore The Historic Park at Hagley

Sunday 14th September 2014

St Basil's (a charity who work with young people aged 16-25 who are homeless or at risk of homelessness) are inviting all supporters to take advantage of a rare opportunity to walk around the Park at Hagley ahead of its official opening in 2015 and to see the scale of restoration work that has taken place in this important Park, which is home to the Lyttelton family. The Park at Hagley is an English Heritage Grade-1 registered Park, an award which deems it to be of exceptional national interest. 100% of the money raised in ticket sales from the day will go towards helping homeless young people in the local area. On the day members of the public will get the chance to experience the breathtaking views the 350 acre park has to offer now it has been restored to its former glory and how it looked at the height of its fame in the early 1800s. Visitors will be able to take a stroll through the 350 acre estate taking in the park’s lake, deer park, rotunda and folly castle, a style of gardens that became popular in the Romantic era of 1800-1850. The park inspired many writers and painters of that time and was famous enough to be visited by two US presidents as well as poet Alexander Pope. "Among the most famous of all eighteenth century landscapes, George Lyttelton's park at Hagley was in its day, visited, viewed, and reviewed to great acclaim by some of the century's most enlightened minds...... John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third American presidents, along with Russian Counts and Italian Princes all made pilgrimages to witness the beauties of Halgey's "hallowed ground" ..... Hagley‘s prestigious position as a pioneer in the evolution of the English Landscape garden has substantial foundations, ..... inspired by the sister arts of painting and poetry, this much celebrated Georgian landscape was coaxed gently from its previous incarnation as a medieval deer park, utilising its natural hillside topography, its ancient trees and watercourses, its green dales and deep wooded vales, and embellishing these with light and slight flourishes of Art, often barely visible to the eye.At Hagley, above all, it was the beauty of unadorned Nature that was revered. Sloping away from the Clent Hills before abruptly rising to the impressive iron-age hill-fort on Wychbury Hill, the park’s terrain ‘borrows’ extensive views to the South and West beyond its boundaries to The Malverns, The Clee and Abberley Hills, The Wrekin and, on a clear day as far as The Black Mountains of Wales, but it is the richness of the immediate historic environment that bears testament to a continual interaction of people and place over many centuries, which contributes much to the region’s status as an undeniable national heritage asset. With an external landscape that reflects in many ways the breadth of our own nation’s history, the park’s interior shows the influence and assimilation of wider world cultures and the changing intellectual tastes of a nation inspired by the Enlightenment." Joe Hawkins - Head of Landscape at Hagley Hall and Park

Come along on the 14th September and enjoy this wonderful experience.

It is advisable to book your tickets in advance. To book tickets or find out more either email: fundraising@stbasils.org.uk or tel: 0121 772 9614

The park will be open from 10.30am to 4.30pm.

Admission Ticket Prices:

Adults £10 each

Children (aged 5 - 14) £3.50 each

children must be accompanied by an adult at all times

 

Family ticket (2 + 2) £25

Seniors £7.50 each

Car parking free

Thanks to Lord Cobham for the Charity Preview Day of the Historic Park at Hagley as 100% of the funds raised from the ticket sales will go to St Bails to help their work with vulnerable 16 to 25 year olds in preventing youth homelessness.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="228"] Lord Cobham[/caption]

For more information on the work St Basils do please visit http://www.stbasils.org.uk/

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