The Feeney Trust and the Clent Hills

The Clent Hills are an enormously valuable open space on the west side of Birmingham.

Few people know that the Feeney Trustees played a crucial role in preventing urban development there and in preserving the land for posterity. In 1937 Feeney Trustees gifted £4,000 to a separate fund to assist Worcester County Council prevent urban development near the Hills; in 1956 this fund was used to purchase 105 acres of woods and other land in the Clatterbach Valley between Clent Hill and Walton Hill.

In 1959 these acres, and the two Clent Hills were given to the National Trust.

The Feeney Clent Fund also enabled an isolated cottage on Clent Hill to be purchased and demolished in 1968. In 1980 the balance of the fund with accumulated interest was used to assist in the purchase of the Horse's Mane, the most important topographical feature of the Hills, together with the land below, on which the Nimmings car park was later constructed.

The Feeney Trust has since made further grants towards the costs of building the car park and the National Trust's 1986 purchase of High Harcourt Farm.

Since 1959 the Hills have been managed by a Management or Advisory Committee, on which John Cadbury represented the Feeney Trust until 1980 and Charles King-Farlow from 2000 to 2009.

The Feeney Trust continues to be represented on the Management Committee.