10th August 2011.
The Society has been commissioned to produce 20 pictures illustrating the life and work of the great Gloucestershire poet, F. W. Harvey for the Apple Tree Inn at Minsterworth. These historic pictures have now been hung in the main dining room in the popular restaurant and are there for the enjoyment and information of diners. Will Harvey spent his formative years in Minsterworth and lived across the road from the Apple Tree Inn at the Redlands, a house familiar to many Foresters passing along the A48 to Gloucester. Here in the years before the First World War the Harvey family entertained Ivor Gurney and Herbert Howells, two other great talents to emerge from this era. The building now known as the Apple Tree Inn then formed part of the estate of the Harvey household and only became a public house many years later. The Society is very appreciative of the interest shown by proprietor Marion Jayne who is keen to inform her guests about the historic connection between the Apple Tree and the Gloucestershire Laureate.
Steve Cooper, archivist and photographer who produced the pictures said:
“The Harveys were a prominent Gloucestershire family and owned a lot of property around Minsterworth and Churcham. The house at Redlands and what is now the Apple Tree Inn were part of a rural idyll where young Will Harvey grew up. Many of his poems celebrate the orchards, river and natural history of Minsterworth. I hope visitors to the Apple Tree Inn will enjoy the pictures and poems, and be inspired to find out more about will Harvey and his work.”