SCENES from the Wye Valley adorn a new book celebrating the area’s inspirational beauty.

In Landscapes of the Wye Tour, Susan Peterken looks at how, in the late 18th and 19th centuries, poets, artists and travellers flocked to the River Wye in search of a style of beauty known as the picturesque.

Many sketches, paintings, travel diaries and poems were produced in an attempt to capture this elusive quality.

Although the Wye Tour declined in popularity, after many years in which it became one of the first destinations of mass tourism, artists have continued to be inspired by the river and its surrounding landscape.

An exhibition in 2006 was the catalyst for gathering together more recent paintings of the Wye, with many created from similar viewpoints admired by earlier artists.

The book reproduces many of those paintings, together with depictions of the same scenes by earlier artists, demonstrating the Wye’s continuing appeal to creative types.

It also describes the geology and industrial history of the river and its banks and explains how the picturesque art inspired by the Wye fits into European art history.

The book is published by Logaston Press in Woonton, Almeley, costs £14.95 and is available from bookshops across the county.