The Hagley Obelisk (also known as the Wychbury Obelisk and locally as Wychbury Monument) stands close to the summit of

Wychbury Hill Wychbury Hill is a hill situated off the A456 Birmingham Road, at Hagley, Stourbridge, on the border of West Midlands and Worcestershire. It is divided between the parish of Hagley and former parish of Pedmore. It is one of the Clent Hills. ...

in Hagley,

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

, approximately from the border with the

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

. Visible for miles around, and accessible from public footpaths, it was for a while connected with a murder victim discovered on the nearby Lyttelton estate.

History

The

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by Anc ...

is a Grade II* listed building. It is high, and can be seen for many miles around, as far as away as Shropshire, and the hill if not the monument on its summit from the Malverns. It was commissioned as a family memorial and completed in 1758 at the same time as Hagley Park was being redeveloped in the fashionable neoclassical style. There was much debate for decades over whether the eventually disintegrating structure should be demolished for safety reasons, but the consensus was that time and weather should be allowed to do the job until its restoration could be funded. It was formerly on the

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

list of the most endangered

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

s until in 2010 conservation work was begun to repair it with funding aid from Natural England's Higher Level Stewardship scheme and Viscount Cobham. This involved it being largely deconstructed and rebuilt. By 2011 the obelisk had been fully restored, and included a time capsule made up of a local newsletter, a badge of the local Guild, and instructions on how to rebuild the Obelisk. Since at least the 1970s the obelisk has been sporadically defaced with

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

asking "

Who put Bella in the Wych Elm? "Who put Bella down the Wych Elm?" is graffiti that appeared in 1944 following the 1943 discovery by four children of the skeletonised remains of a woman inside a wych elm in Hagley Wood, Hagley (located in the estate of Hagley Hall), in Worceste ...

", a reference to an unsolved World War II-era mystery in which the decomposed body of a woman was found in a nearby wood.

Notes

References

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External links

Wychbury ObeliskWychbury Obelisk Photos
{{coord, 52, 25, 58, N, 2, 07, 03, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title 1758 establishments in England Obelisks in England Monuments and memorials in Worcestershire Buildings and structures completed in 1758 Hagley Hall