Regional links of two distinguished poets explored through 10-day Herefordshire festival
The Ledbury Poetry Festival started this year on the 26 June and ends today (5 July)
People have been getting the chance to learn about the stories of two renowned English poets and their connection to Herefordshire and Worcestershire as part of an event celebrating poetry.
The annual Ledbury Poetry Festival began on the 26 June and sees things come to a close today (5 July) after 10 days of various activities.
During the course of it, University of Worcester lecturer Dan Johnson has taken groups of people on two walks to explore the work and links of Ledbury's own John Masefield and Elizabeth Barrett-Browning to the area.
The member of staff, who covers journalism in his role, was invited to start them up last year after he already was running similar literary walks around the Malvern Hills on JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis.
"What I did was a lot of research into the two poets John Masefield and Elizabeth Barrett-Browning because they both spent many of their early years living in Ledbury and around Ledbury," he said.
"So I thought I'd focus it on the local poets, so I just sort of devised a route where I could show people various houses where the poets lived.
"What I did was I printed out copies of the poems and gave everyone on the walk a pack of poems, so the idea is every now and again we stop and we read a poem, that went well, so they invited me back and this year I decided to do two different walks."
The festival is believed to be "the joint-oldest" one of its kind in UK, according to those who run it.
Mr Johnson said he really enjoyed getting to show people the stories of these poets in particular and put on the walks again, which were held on the 30 June and the 1 July.
"Being outdoors with a group of people who don't really know each other and seeing how everyone interacts and chats and everyone's there because they share a love of poetry, I think that's what's great about the festival as a whole.
"People do come from a long way away to come and spend a few days or the whole week in Ledbury to celebrate poetry."
University of Worcester students have also been working on the event as part of the university's long-standing relationship with the festival to help them gain experience.