The family had been farmers and had prospered in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by stint of advantageous marriage and investment in adjacent land.

The main family house was the building now known as Haden Hall, essentially a large farmhouse that had been extended and rebuilt over time but mostly is believed to date from the seventeenth century.

John married late in life to a young woman, Mary Kendrick, leaving one child, Anna Eliza.

John expressing a wish that his young wife should remarry on his death and this she did, to the Reverend George Barrs, an Evangelical Protestant clergyman.

Corngreaves Hall was a grand property dating from the late eighteenth century and owned by the New British Iron Company who used it to house the managers of their nearby factory, one of whom was Haden-Best's father, Benjamin Best.

[1] Haden-Best soon settled on a scheme of transforming the estate surrounding Haden Hall from being a farm to becoming a house in an imitation of the grand style.

A small cottage next to Haden Hall where Haden-Best had been living was demolished and a large Victorian house was built in its place.

This new building included modern conveniences such as underfloor heating, piped water, a bathroom, flush toilets and a gas supply.

It is probable that Mary Barrs confined herself to a part of the Hall and the remainder was left semi-derelict, almost certainly with the intention of demolishing the entire structure on her death and extending the new house.

The park was designed to emphasise the views south to the Clent Hills while obscuring the less scenic aspect to the north where the industrial landscape of the Black Country dominated.

[4] In July 1884, there is a notice in a local newspaper for an annual floral and horticultural exhibition complete with musical entertainment and refreshments.

Alice married John Shaw, a local doctor, and they lived in Haden Hall for a while after the death of Mary Barrs.

Like Haden-Best, Bassano was a benefactor of the local community, and was largely responsible for financing the building of Holy Trinity Church, Old Hill in the 1870s.

The title deeds were handed to Rowley Regis Urban District Council on 14 October 1922, and the park was opened one week later.

[13] The park is approximately crescent shaped, the core parkland running from the north, the site of the two houses, to the south where the boating lake is situated.

It was probably built around the late 1600s as the home of the moderately wealthy Haden family who, around that time, had begun to call themselves gentlemen as their wealth and status grew.

By the time Haden-Best inherited in the 1870s he wished to build a new house to live in, and the Hall was then occupied by his ageing aunt and later by his adopted daughter and her family.

[15] George Alfred Haden Haden-Best inherited the estate in 1877 and work began on his new house soon after, although it was probably 1879 by the time he moved in.

It is thought that Haden-Best's intention, on the death of his aunt, was to demolish Haden Hall and extend his house, so that the front door would occupy an imposing central position.

The name derived from The Sons of Rest Movement, a social organisation that has provided leisure facilities for men of retirement age in and around Birmingham and the Black Country since 1927, and more recently for women as well.

[18] A bandstand donated by prominent local residents was erected in the grass bowl when the park entered public ownership in 1922.

[22] In contrast, the Orchestral Society of Stewarts & Lloyds steel tube works at Coombs Wood donated the entire net proceeds from its concert to a council fund to provide chairs for the park.

[18] The Glasgow Evening News of 19 September, 1891 reported that Joseph Darby had claimed a new record of 12 feet 11 inches for one backward jump at Haden Hill Park Fete.

[27] Attractions that included a fun fair and Second World War re-enactment display for Cradley Heath's second annual carnival were staged at the park in July 1987.

[28] In 1977, a Municipal nine-hole Par 3 Golf Course was created on land associated with Corngreaves Hall, to the immediate west of the nine-acre field which had been incorporated into the Park in 1922.

The course was closed in 1999 and planted over with trees, turned into a nature reserve and incorporated back into the park, including the land formerly belonging to Corngreaves Hall.

In 1976, a modern leisure centre was built to the north of Haden Hill House, on the piece of land known as Temple Meadow, purchased by the Council in 1922 and partly incorporated into the park.