Exhibition spokesman, Louise Manning said:”One of the people we are celebrating is William Carter, a blacksmith from Ledbury, who was the first person to plough a half-acre in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah.”

Louise actually travelled out to Utah in October.

She saw Mr Carter’s plough in a museum and met descendants of people who travelled from the local area between 1840 and 1880, for a new life as Mormons in America.

Though not a Mormon herself she lives at Hill Farm, Castle Frome – the scene of perhaps the largest single mass conversion to Mormonism in history.

Perhaps as many as 600 people, including John Benbow of Hill Farm, were baptised in the tiny pond that still exists there.

Mr Benbow personally paid for 42 local people to travel out to the USA, and a chance of their own farms there.

In England at the time, it was period of depression, high food prices and few social opportunities.

Louise said that up to 2,000 local people may have taken the decision to leave England for Utah.

The world’s first Mormon chapel is at Gadfield Elm, Eldersfield and the Mormon prophet, Brigham Young himself, is believed to have preached under Ledbury’s Market House.

In 2000, two young Mormon missionaries to Ledbury gave an insight into what the area still means to them.

Enrico Durante, from Italy said: “I feel really blessed to be here and walk the streets where, 150 years ago, our prophets also walked.”

by Anthea

At this moment in time I am sitting with my husband David in Gadfield Elm chapel. We are so honoured to have been called as Church Service Missionaries to this historic building.

We have now served our mission for about six months and I want to share some of my experiences.

Gadfield Elm is situated in the idyllic, picture-postcard county of Worcestershire, England. This area is known as Elgar Country after the famous composer who lived here.

David and I started our mission in July, which proved to be the hottest summer on record. We have been coming twice a week since then. My main experience at Gadfield Elm is one of utter calm and peace of mind. It has also been a humbling experience when I think of all of the souls who left this lovely county to trek across the plains of America.

As I sit here I am surrounded by pictures of my own countrymen and women who left all to establish their faith in another country. I sit and think of my warm home with all of its labour-saving devices and feel humbled. Would I have been willing to leave my beloved country and suffer as they did?

I look out at the lovely trees here and wonder if they were just little saplings when Wilford Woodruff was here preaching to the people. I sit in the chapel and feel a spirit here that is so special that I invite anyone to come and feel it for themselves. I walk out into the grounds and look towards the Malvern Hills and know that the everlasting hills have not changed since Brigham Young preached from their heights.

We would be happy to welcome you here.

A MALVERN couple have been called to serve as missionaries at the first-ever Mormon chapel near the Malvern Hills.

Gadfield Elm Chapel, just south of Pendock, was originally built by the United Brethren in 1836, but they donated it to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when their entire membership converted in the 1840s. The church became the first Mormon chapel and now attracts some 4,000 visitors a year.

David and Anthea Head, of Cowleigh Road, who are both retired, have been called by church authorities to work as Church Service Missionaries at the chapel.

They have been members of the church for 41 years and are proud of the English heritage Gadfield Elm Chapel represents to what is sometimes mistaken for an American church. They will serve for 18 months. For visiting times for the chapel and other information phone 01452 840576.