Hereford site just outside the city and has already proved so successful that trading and business is up on the previous site's record. The annual Three Choirs Festival, originating in the 18th century and one of the oldest music festivals in the British Isles, is held in Hereford every third year, the other venues being Gloucester and Worcester. Composer Sir Edward Elgar lived at Plas Gwyn, Eign Hill, in Hereford between 1904 and 1911, writing some of his most famous works during that time. He is commemorated with a statue on the Cathedral Close. One of his Enigma Variations was inspired
Herbert Howells following year by the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and completed in 1956 by the "Office of Holy Communion". "Collegium Regale", the "Gloucester Service" (for Gloucester Cathedral, 1946) and the "St Paul's Service" (for St Paul's Cathedral, 1951) remain the best known and most admired of the many settings of the Anglican liturgy written by Howells for particular choirs and buildings over the next thirty years. In 1949, the organist Herbert Sumsion asked Howells if he had anything that could be performed at the 1950 Three Choirs Festival to be held at Gloucester. Howells decided to bring out the incomplete choral