Haden Hill House
Haden Hill House Museum in Cradley Heath is a late Victorian gentleman’s residence furnished in period style, surrounded by 55 acres of award winning parkland. The house also holds a variety of temporary exhibitions throughout the year.
The House was built in 1878 by George Alfred Haden Haden-Best who did not wish to live in the Old Hall next door where he grew up with his sisters, aunt and uncle. Haden Hill House has plenty to entertain younger visitors too and the museum has a lively programme of events and activities for all ages as well as a popular selection of activities for schools.
Haden Old Hall is semi-detached to the Victorian house. It is often known as the ‘Tudor Hall’ but it is neither Tudor or a Hall! The name Hall would suggest a medieval origin as medieval manor houses were called halls, even if the buildings were rebuilt later and simply retained the name. However we know that Haden Hall or any earlier building on site was not a manor house or home of a lord of the manor. The Hall was probably originally built around the late 1600s as the home of the Hadens probably a wealthy farming family and we know they were buying up pockets of land locally to rent out. The Haden were part of the ‘middling sort’, wealth but not rich. In the late 1600s they begin to call themselves gentlemen as the family wealth and status grew. Evidence suggests the hall was later split into two farm dwellings. By the time Mr Haden-Best inherited in the 1870s he wished to build a new house to live in. The Old Hall has been rebuilt and restored many times over its lifetime and what you see today is largely a copy of the building which once stood there. We don’t know how much of the historic fabric remains.
We believe he intended to eventually demolish the old hall and build an extension to the Victorian house in its place, but this never happened.
Although the Victorian house is furnished as a museum with Victorian objects, Haden Old Hall is now just a shell after it was damaged by fire and partly restored.
