An artist’s project to draw every Anglican Church in the Diocese of Hereford will come to an end this month after 15 years of steady work. Reg Portman started drawing his parish church as therapy after an illness in 2000 and has been working steadily ever since.

“What started as a refresher exercise in ‘line drawing’ at my then local church of Ford, near Shrewsbury, became a project to complete all the parish churches in Hereford Diocese,” said Reg. “I only have the Cathedral left to do.”

The Ross Gazette caught up Reg on his tour while he was at Whitchurch’s St Dubricius Church last year. Already that morning he had sketched Ganarew’s church and was scheduled to take in St Deinst at Llangarron that afternoon.

There are more than 400 church buildings in the most rural diocese of the Church of England, which geographically covers Herefordshire, South Shropshire and parishes in parts of Wales and Worcestershire. The artist has included those churches which have ‘closed’ during the 15 years he has been working on the project.

Read the full report in this week’s Ross Gazette.