Three Counties popular apple and pear derived alcoholic beverages, many of which are made in this area. The Three Choirs Festival is a festival of sacred choral music which has been held since 1724. It rotates between the three county towns (Worcester, Hereford and Gloucester). It often features music by local composer Edward Elgar. Three Counties The Three Counties of England are traditionally the three agrarian counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Including towns and cities such as Worcester, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Hereford, Leominster, Stourbridge, Evesham, Malvern and Kidderminster, they extend from the southern boundaries of Birmingham in the north to Bristol in
Worcestershire in the English Civil War effectively common land, with long-established although informal usage rights. Other local grievances against the Crown included action to suppress profitable tobacco production, which was well established in the Vale of Evesham. Charles I was simultaneously pursuing religious policies that provoked suspicion in Worcestershire. Although the county had a Catholic minority among its aristocratic families, the rest of the population was firmly Anglican, with a growing group of more radical Protestants in some of its northern towns, such as Kidderminster. Charles' apparent Catholic sympathies, such as the reforms of William Laud that reintroduced many of the trappings of Catholicism back into