Parkfields Gallery fine art

'Ross and the surrounding area is a very creative environment,' says director of the town's Parkfields Gallery,Fritha Clutterbuck. 'There's always a lot going on.' Parkfields sells a highly eclectic mix of work - not just paintings and prints but sculpture, ceramics, jewellery, textiles and furnishings. 'We like to have a mix to appeal to a lot of different people,' she says.

Like many of Ross's businesses, what it sells is largely locally-sourced, although in this case that means the fruit of local creative minds rather than local farmers. 'The work is largely by local artists,' she says. 'We really like to support them, but we also like to invite artists from further afield to make it more interesting for local people. It probably works out at about 65 per cent local, 35 per cent not.'

The gallery has been in its present town centre premises for about seven years but originally started life in the countryside outside Ross, with building work prompting what was originally meant to be a temporary move.

'Initially it was only supposed to be a three month relocation, but when we moved here there was so much passing trade,' she says. 'For a while we tried to run a town gallery here and the country gallery at the same time but that didn't really work, so we've just focused on the town gallery and it's really paid off.'

Parkfields has now become a destination business with many people traveling to Ross just to visit it. 'We have a lot of clients from further afield as well as our local clients - there are quite a few who live away but regularly come back.'

Parkfields has just one full-time and three part-time staff. 'It's a dedicated and enthusiastic team,' she says. So what makes Ross a good location for a business like this? 'The county council does a lot to promote the creative industries in Herefordshire, with things like Hereford Art Week. That's been running for about nine years - it incorporates the whole county and really tries to a create positive attitude to art in Herefordshire.

'There's also a very positive history of tourism here, in the Wye Valley and Herefordshire as a whole,' she continues.'There are such pleasant surroundings with the countryside on your doorstep and a very friendly community with good local amenities and a lot of societies and clubs - there are lots of opportunities to get involved in things and meet people. There are very few traffic problems because people travel very short distances to work. There is also very good access to bigger towns if you want to go there.'

It's businesses like Parkfields that give the town its unique character, she believes. 'It's good that there's a number of independent retailers making a go of it. Our clients comment on the fact that they like coming to Ross and being able to find different businesses instead of all the usual chain shops - there are people offering a range of different things.

'It's important to us that we support local artists - the art is produced locally and transported from not very far away, so as well as being extremely high quality it's also sustainable.'

www.parkfieldsgallery.co.uk