Pitched towards Wales, the unique features such as Offas’s Dyke, Iron Age Hillforts and Marcher castles makes this historic landscape one of the most fortified borders in Europe.  The Marches later attracted artists, following the picturesque Welsh tours of William Gilpin, examining the face of the country by the rules of picturesque beauty. All the elements of classical landscape are present here, woods, ruined castles, fertile river valleys set against a distant backdrop of hills not quite mountains.  AE Housman termed it the 'land of lost content' and its vulnerability in our century makes the task of celebrating this landscape in paint vital.