A little bit of history

A cold January day with flurries of snow. I have been priming canvas and painting. Everything is slow to dry because of the cold so I have been spending some time researching a little bit to get a feel of the area where my studio is based. I live where rivers run, between the Severn and The Wye, where hills rise and forests cover the land. When I come down from the hillsides as I drive some 18 miles to my studio I see a more pastoral landscape with rolling slopes and green meadows. My studio is at the village of Trumpet on the Trumpet Crossroads. I found this today on Wikipedia:

Trumpet, Herefordshire

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Trumpet Inn

Trumpet or The Trumpet is a village in Herefordshire, England. The village is named after the timber-framed Trumpet Inn.
The inn is located at a major crossroads of the A438 and A417/A4172 from where:

• the City of Hereford is 18 km (11 mi) to the west on the A438
• Ledbury is 7 km (4.3 mi) to the east on the A438
• Leominster is 28 km (17 mi) to the northwest initially on the A417
• Gloucester is 32 km (20 mi) to the southeast initially on the A4172

The half-timbered inn is said to be some 800 years old and so named from the obligation of coaches that passed by to blow their coach horns.
The crossing must have been an important intersection of the Gloucester to Leominster and Tewkesbury to Hereford roads.
Local agriculture includes the growing of hops and cider apples.


  This Inn stands across the road from the studio. Reading this has summoned up images in my imagination of coaches and horses and a slower pace of travel than the cars and lorries that rush passed my window. Knowing a little more about the history of a place can change the way you view it and give a broader understanding of its place in the landscape.