VISITORS can immerse themselves in a glorious and unique sound experience, developed by composer and sonic artist Hywel Davies from today.

As they step into the atmospheric 13th-century vaulted wine cellar, visitors are enveloped in a constantly changing soundscape, inspired by Mottisfont’s earliest history and rich birdlife, and created with the help of the local community.

Hywel has been working at Mottisfont for three months as artist-in-residence. From his first visit, he was fascinated by the cellarium, a dramatic medieval space that has survived from Mottisfont’s initial life as a priory. He began to explore the music and text of the Lauds – the songs that the Augustinian priors who once lived here would have sung at the start of every day to give thanks for the arrival of morning.

Hywel also recorded Mottisfont’s spectacular dawn chorus every week – nature’s way of welcoming the new day.