Herefordshire

'Not a mile visually unrewarding or painful' Pevsner wrote of this attractive rolling county on the borders of Wales, studded with red sandstone churches and appealing villages of timber-framed and brick houses. There is a rich medieval legacy, from tiny country churches with the distinctive wiry Norman sculpture of the 'Herefordshire school', to the inventive Gothic of Abbey Dore and Hereford Cathedral. Later highlights include endearing oddities such as the icing-sugar Gothic of the eighteenth century church at Shobdon, and Robert Smirke's grandiose neo-Norman Eastnor Castle.