South of the Malverns is a lonely area called Longdon Marsh. Here Elgar would come for peace and solitude, the acres of desolate marshland with its rows of mysterious willow trees marking out the lines of the drainage ditches.

A close friend of Elgar's, the violinist W.H. Reed wrote: "Here he used to sit and dream. A great deal of The Apostles took shape in his mind there. He told me he had to go there more than once to think out those climaxes in the Ascension."

Even more remote, at the end of a long and narrow lane, is Queenhill Church. Here, in the porchway outside the main door, Elgar would often sit to enjoy the solitude of the churchyard.

It is believed that it was in this porch, while sheltering from a thunderstorm, that Elgar thought out the climax of The Apostles.

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