Wedding Photographer Worcestershire — Worcester Cathedral, the Malvern Hills and the Severn Valley
Worcestershire is the English county of the Severn’s great westward loop and the Malvern Hills’ pre-Cambrian ridge — a county of considerable topographical and cultural variety, from Worcester Cathedral’s Norman tower above the Severn’s broad flood meadows through the Malvern Hills’ ancient rock ridge to the Vale of Evesham’s blossom country and the county’s concentration of half-timbered black-and-white villages of the Severn plain. For Worcestershire wedding photography, the county’s portrait landscape ranges from Worcester Cathedral’s river frontage (one of England’s finest cathedral riverside positions) through Great Malvern Priory’s Norman arcades to the Worcestershire Beacon’s 425-metre ridge views above the Severn plain.
Worcester Cathedral, the Severn Meadows and Elgar’s Birthplace
Worcester Cathedral — the Norman and Gothic cathedral of St Wulstan’s foundation (1084), with the tower’s 196-foot silhouette above the Severn meadows, the Norman crypt’s unaltered arcade and the Prince Arthur’s Chantry’s Perpendicular fan vault — provides a cathedral portrait setting of considerable Norman depth above the Severn plain: the cathedral’s river frontage from the water meadows of the Severn bank across the meadows provides one of England’s most scenic cathedral river portrait compositions, particularly at dawn and dusk when the tower’s reflections appear in the Severn’s still surface. Broadheath’s Elgar Birthplace Museum — the cottage where Edward Elgar was born in 1857, four miles west in the Severn plain — provides a musical-heritage portrait destination.
The Malvern Hills, Great Malvern Priory and the Worcestershire Beacon
The Malvern Hills — the 9-mile pre-Cambrian quartzite and schist ridge rising to 425 metres at the Worcestershire Beacon, separating the Severn plain from the Herefordshire plain to the east, with the ridge’s open access land providing hilltop walking portrait settings above both the Severn and Herefordshire plains simultaneously — provide a portrait landscape of considerable geological antiquity (pre-Cambrian rock c.680 million years old) and visual drama. Great Malvern Priory — the Norman and Perpendicular church of the Victorian spa town at the Hills’ eastern base, with the medieval tiles’ collection and the Norman arcade intact — provides a medieval ecclesiastical interior portrait setting. The Malvern water springs provide specific Victorian spa town context.