Hagley Hall - Park

Park

The present landscape was created from about 1739 to 1764, with follies designed by Lord Camelford, Thomas Pitt of Encombe, James "Athenian" Stuart, and Sanderson Miller. Hagley and Croome Court have more follies and other similar features than any estate in the England.

The follies at Hagley include Wychbury Obelisk on Wychbury Hill, built in 1764 for Sir Richard Lyttelton. This is visible for many miles. The Temple of Theseus built from 1759 to c. 1762 at a cost of £300 was a gift from Admiral Smith, Lyttelton's half-brother. Other small buildings include some small classical buildings; a sham ruined castle and the "The Four Stones", or Ossian's Tomb as it was termed, on the summit of Clent Hill. Horace Walpole, notoriously hard to please, wrote after a visit in 1753, "I wore out my eyes with gazing, my feet with climbing, and my tongue and vocabulary with commending".

In April 1786 John Adams (the future second President of the United States on tour with Thomas Jefferson—who would serve as his vice president before becoming President himself) visited Hagley and other notable house in the area, after visiting them he wrote in his diary "Stowe, Hagley, and Blenheim, are superb; Woburn, Caversham, and the Leasowes are beautiful. Wotton is both great and elegant, though neglected". In his diary he was damming about the means used to finance the estates, but he was particularly enamoured with Hagley, although he did not think that such embellishments would suit the more rugged American countryside.