Hagley Historical and Field Society

The Society’s AGM always takes place at the October meeting, but in recent years this has been reduced in length to give the speaker an opportunity to talk for a reasonable amount of time and for those attending to enjoy a better evening.  Chairman Ray Porter and Acting Chair Jackie Hiorns managed to deal with the business in six minutes so that the very large audience could then enjoy Don Freeth’s fabulous presentation entitled ‘What Happened to Hagley?’.  Don has a huge collection of photographs of the village from Victorian to modern times and he had compiled a selection that enabled us to go on a virtual walk from St Saviour’s, along Worcester Road via Winds Point to the station and schools, before returning to climb Park Road to the cattle market.  After a stroll around Upper Hagley, we returned down Kidderminster Road and back along Worcester Road.  Don had many ‘then and now’ pictures and was able to use his encyclopaedic knowledge to identify personalities and the businesses that they once ran.  What was so noticeable was the way in which a rural community and its farms had been transformed into the large residential village of today and how much had gone, almost without us realising it – a truly absorbing evening.