Herefordshire has an amazing and varied range of arts and cultural activities to offer: from psych-folk nights to poetry groups, literary festivals to pop-up exhibitions, film festivals to creatives galore. Locals often remark that because there are no quick and easy ways to get to the larger, more obvious cultural centres (like Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester or London) they must make their own culture – and this is no bad thing. This page features arts activities with links to heritage and the county, and, in some cases, connects nationally and internationally.
Based in Herefordshire for nearly 50 years, Glenn Storhaug, through Five Seasons Press, created affordable poetry books and collectible editions featuring an impressive range of poets, including Seamus Heaney, Frances Horovitz, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Stevenson and Wendell Berry. This intimate filmic portrait by Hereford-based filmmakers, Catcher Media (makers of Chewing The Cud and Stories From the Hop Yards ) celebrates Glenn’s work, his collaborations with poets and the books he has created.
Sadly, Glenn passed away on 21st February 2026, aged 78. But before he did so, he and Rick Goldsmith – the film’s director – toured the film. It was well-received at the Ledbury Poetry Festival (its world premiere), The Courtyard in Hereford and the Hay Winter festival (these last two sold out). Rick introduced the film and once it had finished there were 15-20 minute entertaining Q&As with Glenn. These chats often continued in the bar. The project received funding from the Beaumont Trust and The Elmley Foundation. Glenn said it had been a great privilege to have been able to share this film with friends and colleagues. RIP Glenn Storhaug.
Thanks to support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Catcher Media worked with The Sidney Nolan Trust on an exciting video oral history project. Working with the Trust and a group of volunteers, Julia and Rick, captured nine interviews which detailed memories of life at the two sites the charity looks after on the Wales-England border. The resulting interviews were edited and feature lots of archive photographs.
The sites are The Bleddfa Centre in the village of Bleddfa in Powys and The Rodd, a 400-year old farm, estate and house near Presteigne. The project recorded knowledge and shared stories of local farming and village life, and the lives and family histories of the people who worked at and lived in both places, including theatre director James Roose-Evans (1927-2022) who was the driving force behind setting up The Bleddfa Trust, and the artist Sidney Nolan (1917-1992), who lived at The Rodd and founded the Trust there as a rural arts centre.
The short video interviews presented below were commissioned from Catcher Media by the Hereford College of Art as part of their celebrations to commemorate 170 years. They represent a wide range of experiences but what they have in common is the inspiration that studying art gave each person, and how it influenced their life and career. Each film focuses on the interviewee’s time at HCA and how these different people never forgot their creative education as they made their way in the world: some set up successful businesses while others carried on their art practice.
Judy Giles first attended the college in the late 1950s when it was on Castle Green, while Shona Warnes attended the newly-built Folly Lane building in the early 1970s. Anthony ‘Murf’ Murphy also attended Folly Lane, but nearly thirty years after Shona had done, in 1998-2000, and the last of the four, Mark Houghton, has been an art tutor on two campus’, Folly Lane and College Road, from the late 1990s to the present-day.
Each film is approximately five minutes long, so presents a small taste of their HCA experiences. We hope you enjoy these films, as much as we enjoyed making them and meeting the people that feature within them. Subtitles can be accessed by pressing the ‘CC’ button on the player. NB: The image of Castle Green (above) is from one of Judy Giles’ art college sketchbooks.
