Highbury Hall and Park, Birmingham, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Joseph Chamberlain came to Birmingham in 1854 to join his father's screw manufacturing business. By 1874 he had amassed sufficient fortune to retire and embark on a political career. In 1878, three years after the death of his second wife and two years after he was elected Member of Parliament for Birmingham, he purchased land at Moor Green, about 7km south of the centre of Birmingham. This was an area where from the later 18th century a number of residential estates had been established by the town's rich and successful who wished to enjoy a lifestyle that was 'rus in urbe'. Here he had a large house constructed surrounded by landscaped gardens, named Highbury after the London suburb where he spent his childhood. In 1888 Chamberlain married again, to the American Mary Endicott, and thenceforward until 1906, when he had a stroke and withdrew from active political life, Highbury was the setting for large social and political gatherings. About 30 hectares, south of the lake, were added to Highbury by lease or purchase in about 1900.

Chamberlain died in 1914, and from 1915 the house was used as a hospital and home for disabled servicemen. In 1919 Sir Austen Chamberlain gave the house to the Highbury Trustees, who presented it to the Corporation of Birmingham (later the City Council) in 1932 along with adjacent land purchased by public subscription. Thereafter, until 1984, the Hall was used as a home for Aged Women, and also housed a small Chamberlain museum. In 1984 a renovation programme began, and in the 1990s Highbury was used for a wide range of civic and social activities. The greater part of Highbury's grounds was made a public park soon after 1932, which also incorporated the Henburys' villa estate which lay along the southern edge of Highbury and Uffculme. The park remained much used in 1997.