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. Its estimated population was 7,162 in 2019. Development From the time of the Domesday Book until the 1933 boundary changes, the parish of Hagley extended southwards from the village to include the present parish of Blakedown. The main focus of the village, on the lower slopes of the Clent Hills, was on the outskirts, where Hagley Hall and the parish church of St John the Baptist can be found. The parish register of Hagley is the oldest in England. It dates from 1 December 1538, which was the year in which registers were ordered to be kept in all parishes. Lower Hagley lies downhill and started to expand with the arrival of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway in 1852 and the eventual building of Hagley railway station. The growth of what is now known as West Hagley initiated a shift in the focus of the village. Today it includes the shopping area and the schools, although the precise dividing line between the two areas is not formally defined. Civil status Hagley is part of the West Midlands Urban Area as defined by the Office for National Statistics, and is joined to Stourbridge and the Black Country by the A491 and B4187 (formerly part of the A450). It is also situated on the A456 Birmingham to Kidderminster road. This is known as the Hagley Road in Birmingham, as it was once administered by a turnpike trust whose responsibilities ended at the former boundary of the parish (now in Blakedown). There is also a frequent rail service between Kidderminster and Birmingham. Although Hagley has a population larger than some market towns (such as Tenbury Wells) and once had its own cattle market, it lacks the marks of a market town. While it has a shopping street and many local services, it has little local employment beyond these, although unemployment is low: 2.6 per cent of the population at the time of the 2001 census. Hagley is essentially a dormitory village for Birmingham or the adjacent Black Country. Prior to the creation of the Parish Council by the Local Government Act 1894, village affairs were run by the ratepayers of a vestry committee based on St John the Baptist Church. Presently,