Housing development
Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the area now called Wedderburn Road was simply two fields to the east of Pound Bank in Malvern. The fields were named as Barbers Hill and Barbers Meadow. At the end of the 19th century the land was acquired by a local property developer and the first houses were built in 1901. Since then the development of many more houses and bungalows has filled up the two fields. Properties have also been built as in-fill between the older, widely spaced houses, with the latest appearing as recently as 2010. House ownership has gradually been transferred from the developers such as W F Hayes to private ownership.
House deeds
Much of what is known about the land ownership has been gained from house deeds. As more of these become available a clearer picture of who owned the land will emerge. The existing deeds reveal a number of conditions that were set down when land was sold for development. The new owners had to agree not to carry out any trade that would cause ‘noisome or noxious’ problems to the neighbours. This probably referred to trades such as mechanical engineering or large scale waste disposal. The abattoir and pig rearing continued and so must have been acceptable.
The deeds also contain references to who owned or managed the land before it was bought by W F Hayes. References to Madresfield Estate, Guarlford and Upton on Severn appear in different deeds which require more investigation.
This part of the website describes how the land development occurred over 100 years.