Elgar would often visit Mordiford for the fishing as it was only a short cycle-ride from his Hereford home (Plas Gwyn) and it was here that many of the sketches for his work 'The Music Makers' - a setting of the poem by Arthur O'Shaughnessy - are believed to have been made.
Elgar was seldom happier than when he was down by the river, either the Severn, the Wye, the Teme, or, as here, the more humble Lugg.
"Play it like something you hear down by the river" he once said while rehearsing an orchestra. To a friend he wrote "I am still at heart the dreamy child who used to be found in the reeds by Severn-side with a sheet of paper trying to fix the sounds and longing for something very great."
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