Elgar honoured in modern fashion.

With the Tour of Britain coming next week and cycle fever about to sweep the country, one of Worcestershire’s well-known ‘cyclists’ has reappeared at his birthplace museum in the village of Lower Broadheath.

Edward Elgar, composer of the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, Salut d’amour, Nimrod and the other Enigma Variations, has made his return in a typical fun-loving way. A three metre high mural of Elgar, coming towards you at full speed, now forms one of the focal points in the Museum’s grounds. The Museum, which is just three miles from the city and in the heart of the countryside that Elgar knew so well and loved so much, charts the composer’s rise to fame and the life and times in which he lived.

Cathy Sloan, Museum Director said: “It is fitting that Elgar should choose this mode of transport on which to make his timely return to Lower Broadheath. He would sometimes cycle up to 50 miles a day on his Royal Sunbeam, and it was often when he was out and about, cycling the lanes of his beloved Worcestershire, that some new tune would come to him. The music world has a lot to thank cycling for!”

The Elgar Birthplace Museum in Lower Broadheath, just outside Worcester, commissioned the Banksy-style street artists to add another element to its ever growing visitor attraction. Cycle d’amour now looks out over the Museum’s Family Musical Garden which was installed for the Queen’s Jubilee in 2012.

The art-work was generously funded by The Elgar Society West Midlands Branch and The Kay Trust.