Sir Edward Elgar, 1857 - 1934

If there was a list of composers whose music could create an atmosphere then Sir Edward Elgar should definitely be on that list. From Enigma Variations to the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, his music creates atmosphere and emotion.

The Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 (Land of Hope and Glory) is played every year as part of the "Last Night of the Proms" here in Britain. The Proms are an eight week summer season of daily musical concerts with half of the last night made up of a standard set of very patriotic pieces.

In the panorama, over by the wall, you can just see a plaque with the following engraved on it:

St Wulstan's Church and Elgar's Grave

Welcome to our Churchyard. We hope you will enjoy your visit to this peaceful place.

"Music is in the air all around you; you just take as much as you want". Edward Elgar wrote this in 1904. He was inspired by the surrounding countryside - his beloved Malvern Hills and the sweeping Severn plain.

The world-famous composer was born at Broadheath, not 10 miles from here. His wife Caroline Alice provided the stimulus for much of his greatest work. He said of her "All I have done was owing to her".

She died 14 years before him, and was buried here. It was springtime and Edward wrote:
"The place she chose long years ago is too sweet - the blossoms are white all round the illimitable plain, with all the hills and churches in the distance which were hers from childhood, looks just the same - inscrutable and unchanging".

Edward is buried beside her. Time has passed, but we hope that visitors will feel that this spot still retains that peaceful atmosphere.

Recent Restoration Work

This churchyard is maintained solely on voluntary contributions and labour. In the winter of 1994-5 a cypress tree adjacent to Elgar's grave was blown down, breaking the boundary wall as it fell. It also caused the area to flood fracturing what we now know was a Victorian land drain.

In August 1996 St Wulstan's Church started an Appeal for funds to help pay for urgent repairs and restoration work to the church and to pay for the refurbishment of the churchyard. In November 1996 we felled dead trees, lopped others and removed the remaining cypress trees adjacent to Elgar's grave. Following this tree surgery the boundary walls in the immediate area of this notice we demolished to permit tree roots to be removed and the walls have been rebuilt, hopefully to last another 50 years before major attention is needed.

The paths still need resurfacing and we hope to erect better notices here for the benefit of visitors. We also want to plant one or two trees to replace those we had to fell. All this needs money!

Thus if you are able to make a contribution to our restoration work and to the maintenance of the area around Sir Edward's grave we would be most grateful.

Please leave donations in the money box in the wall adjacent to this notice. The box is cleared regularly throughout the week.

St Wulstan's Church Restoration Committee wish to thank all who have made contributions to our fund, especially the Malvern Hills District Council for a generous grant towards the costs of refurbishing the churchyard.

I had shot a panorama at this location a few years ago, but I enjoyed the chance to re-shoot the view with a better setup. The result was a much clearer panorama with more detail that was able to be shown at a higher resolution.

---

---

Europe / UK-England

Lat: 52° 3' 58.37" N
Long: 3° 21' 8.75" W

Elevation: 488 ft

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

Taken with a Nikon D70 and the standard 18mm-70mm lens (set at 18mm). Mounted on a home made multi-row bracket (Thanks to John Warner for his metal work skills). 3 rows (-45, 0, & +45 degrees) of 10 portrait photos taken 36 degrees apart and a single zenith photo. All photos shot in RAW mode. Two sets of photos extracted, one correctly exposed and one under exposed (-4 EV). Two panoramas stitched using PTGUI / Panotools / Enblend and then merged into one using Jook Leung's HDRforDummiesV2 script. Finally converted to a QTVR Cube using Pano2QTVR Pro.