Worcester - Elgar's Birthplace

20  August we left Bristol and drove to Worcester. We were booked in for two nights at the Premier Inn.

Its major attraction for Joan is that it overlooked Worcester Cricket Club's grounds. 

Worcester is the site of the last battle in the Civil War where  Cromwell's Parliamentary Army triumphed on 3 September 1651 and  King Charles II fled, first being hidden by my forebears the Penderills in an oak tree before being smuggled to Europe.

We visited the Commandery, a complex of old houses. which was Royalist Headquarters during the Battle of Worcester 1651, and in the evening had fish'n'chips and a bottle of The Ned Sauvignon Blanc in the hotel's restaurant.

Friday 21 August we drove the short distance to The Firs, birthplace of Edward Elgar. This is a small cottage with a cottage garden. 

At the end of the garden is a statue of Elgar on a bench where he used to sit to watch the country side.

At 11:00 in the visitor centre was an excellent talk about Elgar by author Richard Westwood-Brookes. We had intended to leave after it, but he was giving another talk at 13:300 in which he would reveal that Elgar didn't write Land of Hope & Glory. We had to stay for that, so had lunch. Although this is a NT place, the café  is not a standard NT one. Joan had a filling thick-cut back bacon sandwich on granary bread and I enjoyed a delightful toasted tea cake with wrapped pats of local butter and cherry jam.

The 13:00 talk revealed that the tune used for Land of Hope & Glory was originally General Gordon's theme in a piece Elgar was composing about the hero, but he didn't complete the work. When asked some years later to supply music for the coronation of Edward VII he revived the music, and words appropriate to the coronation were written for it by Arthur C. Benson. The coronation did not take place because of Edward's illness.

The music publisher, who owned copyright, asked Benson to write new words suitable for a popular song, and so the current piece was created.  When Land of Hope & Glory was first performed at the Proms, the audience demanded three encores, and it has been performed ever since.

 

Westwood-Brookes also told us that the tune is played at graduation ceremonies in US and Canadian universities.

That night we went to Yeliz Turkish Restaurant in The Old Rectifying House on the river just across from the hotel where

I had Chicken Sauté and we shared a bottle of Kayra Buzbag Okuzgozu from Turkey.

We checked out Saturday, and headed home, stopping for lunch at NT Stowe Gardens. Excellent scones at the café. The grounds are enormous and dotted with follies and temples.

There are lakes, and one is bridged with this magnificent Corinthium columned structure.

We must return.

And then home for a Deliverood Nando's, the last of our holiday restaurant meals.