麻豆官网首页入口

The area around Hergest Ridge in Herefordshire provided inspriation for the title of Mike Oldfield's second album.

There's an old saying in rock music that you have 12 years to write your first album and 12 months to write your second, which is why so many bands struggle to produce that difficult follow-up album.

Imagine the scale of the mountain facing Mike Oldfield, whose first album, Tubular Bells, sold millions, stayed on the album charts for five years, and was one of the cultural landmarks of the 1970s.

Mike was never a conventional rock star - not given to smashing hotel rooms or relocating limousines into swimming pools, and to work on the follow up to Tubular Bells, he bought himself a house of the borders of Herefordshire and Wales, just about as far from bright lights and big cities as it is possible to get.

When the work was finished, he called it Hergest Ridge (the name is pronounced, "hargist" with a hard G), and the cover art was a photo of an Irish Wolfhound called Bootleg, sitting atop the ridge.

With a typical 70s touch, the photo could be made panoramic by using a special mirror tube that came with the album.

Mike Oldfield's next album, Ommadawn, also featured a reference to the area, with the lyric "...if you feel a little glum, To Hergest Ridge you should come." - which also helps explain why Mike is better remembered as an instrumentalist, than a lyricist.

It was the only album he recorded in his home studio at The Beacon, the house he bought on Hergest Ridge.

The Beacon is now a guest house, and is on the pilgrimage route for Oldfield fans.

Rob Pritchard lived there and had many close encounters with fans, as he told 麻豆官网首页入口 Hereford & Worcester:

"I walk the dogs at six-thirty in the morning and at the gate, with the sun coming straight into my eyes, I saw this apparition.

"It turned out to be two Japanese, a man and a woman, and they said "Mike Oldfield?" and I told them Mike Oldfield doesn't live here any more, and they told me they'd come from Japan to meet him.

"They'd actually flown into Cardiff, and asked where Mike Oldfield lived, and they'd been sent to Knighton, and the next morning, first thing, they came over here."

Sometimes he couldn't believe the determination of the fans:

"Two Spanish lads of about 20 emailed me to ask where the nearest airport was, and then where the nearest bus station was, and I thought it was a joke, so I told them if they could get to Kington I'd pick them up.

"They rolled up one day, and they'd caught a plane to London, a train to Hereford, a bus to Kington, and walked up from Kington with two great suitcases.

"They stayed for a week, and walked over the hills and sang Mike Oldfield songs."

He also admires Mike Oldfield's determination to make sure he could carry on making music while he lived at the house:

"When he was here, there was no road into the Beacon as such.

"He had to come along a lane to the common, and drag a grand piano 200 yards up the hillside, which he did, and then he couldn't get it through the door, so he took the windows out to get it in."

Show less