| Wychbury Hill | |
|---|---|
 Wychbury Hill looking towards Wychbury Obelisk | |
| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 224 m (735 ft) |
| Geography | |
| Location | Stourbridge, West Midlands, England |
| OS grid | SO920817 |
| Topo map | OS Explorer 219 |
Wychbury Hill is a hill situated off the A456 Birmingham Road, at Hagley, Stourbridge, on the border of West Midlands and Worcestershire.
A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to the particular section of flat terrain without a massive summit.
Known as the Hagley Road in Birmingham, the A456 is a main road in England running between Central Birmingham and Woofferton, Shropshire, south of Ludlow. Some sections of the route, for example Edgbaston near Bearwood, are also the route of the Elan Aqueduct which carries Birmingham's water supply from the Elan Valley.
Hagley is a large village and civil parish in Worcestershire, England. It is on the boundary of the West Midlands and Worcestershire counties between the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and Kidderminster. As of December 2016 it had an estimated population of 6,097.
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It is divided between the parish of Hagley and former parish of Pedmore. It is one of the Clent Hills. The hill offers good views across the Severn Valley as far as the Malvern Hills and Clee Hills. It is the site of Wychbury Ring - an Iron Age hill fort [1] - and the Wychbury Obelisk , [2] and is much beloved of pagans, with the site containing a 28-tree ancient yew grove, and not because the name sounds like "witch". The name is actually unrelated, being derived from that of the Saxon subkingdom of the Hwicce.
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or more curates, and who operates from a parish church. Historically, a parish often covered the same geographical area as a manor. Its association with the parish church remains paramount.
Pedmore is a residential suburb of Stourbridge in the West Midlands of England. It was originally a village in the Worcestershire countryside until extensive housebuilding during the interwar years saw it gradually merged into Stourbridge. The population of the appropriate Dudley Ward taken at the 2011 census was 12,471.
The Clent Hills lie 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Birmingham city centre in Clent, Worcestershire, England. The closest towns are Stourbridge and Halesowen, both in the West Midlands conurbation. The Clent Hills range consists of, in order from north-west to south-east: Wychbury Hill, Clent Hill, and Walton Hill. The north Worcestershire range of hills continues eastwards to include Romsley Hill, Waseley Hills and the Lickey Hills.
On the flank of the hill is a folly in the shape of a Greek Doric temple, in fact a miniature replica of the end of the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens. Built in 1758, it was England's first example of Neoclassical architecture. The temple is currently in a seriously dilapidated and vandalised condition. It is a listed building on private land and permanently fenced off to the public.
In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of garden ornaments usually associated with the class of buildings to which it belongs.
The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of columns. Originating in the western Dorian region of Greece, it is the earliest and in its essence the simplest of the orders, though still with complex details in the entablature above.
The Temple of Hephaestus or Hephaisteion or earlier as the Theseion, is a well-preserved Greek temple; it remains standing largely as built. It is a Doric peripteral temple, and is located at the north-west side of the Agora of Athens, on top of the Agoraios Kolonos hill. From the 7th century until 1834, it served as the Greek Orthodox church of Saint George Akamates. The building's condition has been maintained due to its history of varied use.
In 1999 the obelisk was defaced with graffiti referring to the unsolved post World War II mystery: Who put Bella in the Wych Elm? when the decomposed body of a woman was found in a nearby wood. [3] The graffiti was not removed during the restoration of the obelisk in 2010. [4]
Graffiti is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually as a form of artistic expression, without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.
