Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/180

166 This lofty watch-tower on the Green Border-Land that divides the regions of coal and corn, is a favourite resort and breathing-ground of miners and forgers and the other sooty workers of The Black Country. On these bald and breezy heights they can quaff the luxury of the happiest and healthiest air that breathes, and disport themselves to their hearts' content in all the wild freedom of the place. One might think that a miner who had grubbed in coal-seams fifty fathoms under-ground for six days in the week, if he was a devout man, would feel himself at "a half-way house on the road to heaven" when standing the seventh on this Beulah hill of a new world. This common pasture for man and beast, which yields such fresh pure air for the one, and sweet though short grazing for the other, contains about 500 acres, all perfectly safe and secure as a common inheritance of the inhabitants of the villages below, and as a field of recreation for the people of the country around.

Hagley Hall, the seat of the Lytteltons, is situated at the foot of this hill, with an extensive and noble park running up to the brow of the eminence. The park is more classical in aspect than the mansion itself, which is a portly, rectangular, modern-looking building externally, looking more like the pretentious house of a retired manufacturer than the country-seat of one of the most scholarly