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Welcome to this website celebrating the connection between Harry Plunket Greene and the small Hampshire village of Hurstbourne Priors. 'Who? and Where?', you may be thinking. Read on, however, and you will discover that Plunket Greene was a key figure in English music for almost 50 years, during the revival led by the composers Parry, Stanford, Vaughan Williams, Elgar and others. And a short period in the history of this delightful village was brilliantly captured in his book which celebrates fly-fishing on the Bourne Rivulet with stories which bring the village of the early twentieth century to life. Putting both together leads to a very interesting exploration of his life and times, centred on this beautiful village in southern England. Hurstbourne Priors is a historic village and parish in rural north-west Hampshire, England, mentioned in the Domesday Book. Imagine a typical English village: there are thatched cottages, a Pub, Village Hall, Cricket Ground and Church. The village of around 200 people stretches along the B3048, north and south of the cross roads with the B3400 Whitchurch to Andover road. The extensive Hurstbourne Park estate was until the mid-1930s in the ownership of the Earls of Portsmouth, the Wallop family. Hurstbourne Park was considered by the Victorian writer Charles Kingsley to be the most beautiful park in southern England. A clear chalk stream, the Bourne Rivulet, flows south-east into the River Test, "Where the Bright Waters Meet".
1902-13 The Irish bass-baritone, Harry Plunket Greene rented a house in Hurstbourne Priors, during the middle of his long career as international singer and singing teacher, and soon after the birth of his first son, Richard. These years took him from age 37 up to 47. He was a passionate fly-fisherman on the crystal-clear waters of the Bourne and Test. He wrote beautifully about these years in his book "Where the Bright Waters Meet", first published in 1924. It is justly celebrated as a classic of fly-fishing and lyrical evocation of the Rivers Bourne and Test, while giving a snapshot of the life of Hurstbourne Priors in the early twentieth century.
The Singer Harry Plunket Greene’s first public performance was in Handel’s Messiah in 1888. He sang at Covent Garden in the early 1890s, but it was his singing at the Three Choirs Festivals, from 1892, when he sang the part of Job in the new oratorio by Sir Hubert Parry, which brought him to prominence. He married Parry’s younger daughter, Gwendolen, in 1899. With the pianist Leonard Borwick, he gave song recitals of great range, including Schumann’s Dicterliebe and Brahms’ songs. The noted Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) wrote many songs for him. He was also highly regarded as a teacher of his art.
The Changing Village The Hurstbourne Priors of his time was already beginning to change, with the tarmacking of the road and the new watercress beds. He bewails these changes as detrimental, not least to trout fishing. The village has continued to evolve, as it must, with losses and gains through the years. It is very accessible from both the A303/M3 (London to the West Country) and A34 (Winchester to Oxford). Hurstbourne Priors remains a beautiful place in which to live.
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