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last updated 3 June, 2008
Home Town
Kington is a small market town in the rural county of Herefordshire – the population at the 2001 census was 2597. It’s set in the valley of the River Arrow and surrounded by hills on three sides. For some of its history it’s been in Wales, for some of the time in England. This has nothing to do with some Dark Age tug of war between two powerful magicians (though we did have a notable character who walked on the dark side by the name of Black Vaughan) and everything to do with the regular realignment of the border depending on who was allied with whom and who was sitting on the throne in London on any given date. This has resulted in a number of places currently on the English side of the border having Welsh names and vice versa – which is a little confusing for those not up on British Medieval history.
Thomas (aka ‘Black’) Vaughan features a lot in Kington’s history. He lived at a place, still extant, called Hergest Court and was the archetypal wicked squire. He was killed, decapitated actually, at the Battle Of Banbury (part of the “Wars Of The Roses” series) in 1469. No sooner had his head hit the ground than his faithful and fearsome black bloodhound came howling across the battlefield and scooped up the head in its massive jaws and set off full pelt back to Hergest Court. Thomas was buried in the eerie family vault at Kington Church, but his ghost, in the form of a black bull, and accompanied by the ubiquitous black hound, rampaged through the area scaring the populace to such a degree that the people simply refused to go outside and the whole economy of the area was seriously compromised.
In the end, an exorcism was arranged, though it took 12 priests and a hell of lot of shouting, chanting and biblical quotation to reduce Black Vaughan’s spirit to the size of a blowfly which was then (for reasons too arcane to contemplate) confined in a snuff box and interred under a heavy stone slab in the bed of the lake at Hergest Court.
Of course the hound still roams the byways of the parish to this day and it will certainly scare you shitless if you happen upon it, or worse, if it happens upon you.
Just a little local color there.
(Oh, I forgot to say, Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle came upon it one evening while touring the area and later used the experience as a basis for his ‘Hound Of The Baskervilles’ story.)
Now those of you with a musical disposition might have focussed on the word ‘Hergest’ in that story. Forming the backdrop to the town is a long hill called “Hergest Ridge”. It was here in Kington that Mike Oldfield lived when he wrote and recorded that ‘difficult second album’ that bears the ridge’s name. The story that the tourists hear is that he resided at Penrhos Court which is a massive, picture perfect, chocolate box Elizabethan home of quality and is therefore exactly the place one would imagine a rock superstar to inhabit. However, the guy who delivers our heating oil tells me that he actually lived and recorded in a single room in a shabby brick built bungalow on the road that eventually takes you to Kington Golf Club (at 1100ft above sea level, the highest golf course in England).
I bet that you, along with everybody else you know, calls that album ‘HER-JEST Ridge’ – I’ve never heard it pronounced in any other way. But, in fact, the correct pronunciation is ‘HAR-GEST’ (ie the ‘g’ s a hard sound not soft and the ‘E’ in ‘Her’ is in fact pronounced as an ‘A’ – I have absolutely no explanation for this except that’s the way it is).
All small towns have their way of sorting locals from outsiders – and the way you pronounce ‘Hergest’ is the litmus here. And it’s hard to avoid the word as in addition to Hergest Ridge and Hergest Court, there’s also Hergest Bridge, Hergest Croft (beautiful gardens open to the public) the villages of Upper Hergest, and Lower Hergest (where Andy, our keyboard player lives) and, of course, Hergest Road (where Evelyn lived before going off to University).
Believe me, smart as you may be – you’re going to get caught out at some point.
So there you have it – I hope you’ve enjoyed this little tour of the place where Mermaid Kiss was born!
Jamie Field, 2007