VICTORIAN HAGLEY
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Broome C.1850 - C.1920
‘If ever we take up the clerical profession’, observed a Victorian writer, ‘commend us to Broome’. Nothing seemed to happen in Broome in 1850, and it was all the better for it. In the fields, mostly owned by the Earl of Dudley, wheat and barley grew. In the school, which no one had remembered to name, only 25 children were educated. In the church, built of brick in 1780, the Revd. J.G. Bourne could fit the whole village of 100 or so people. He could happily believe he fully earned his £320 a year – no one went to rival chapels, complaints about church rates were genteel. Broome House, now a care home, was built in the late 18th century.
A nearby farm is of similar style and may possibly have been built around the same time. With its pool – alas now without its island – and carefully laid out gardens, Broome House is an attractive, tranquil place. A photograph from the early twentieth century shows a shooting party standing by the front entrance of the house. This was taken during the time the house was owned by Sir John Holder. Always immaculately dressed, Holder was a car enthusiast, often appearing at the Brooklands race track. He built a miniature railway in the grounds of Broome House, but this has long since been dismantled.
