POET and composer Ivor Gurney has been honoured with a plaque by Wycombe District Council.

The plaque, on Strawberry Patch, The Greenway, High Wycombe, was unveiled on Saturday as part of the Councils Heritage Plaque Scheme which recognises buildings in the area that have been home to significant characters.

Between 1913 to 1915, Strawberry Patch, formerly St Michaels, was the family home of the Chapmans, whose friend and weekend lodger was the renowned poet and composer Mr Gurney.

Throughout his creative life, Mr Gurney's First World War-inspired poetry was recognised for its outstanding creative quality and his music was performed in musical theatres around the world

He was born on August 28, 1890, in Gloucester, and his musical talent saw him becoming a member of the Cathedral Choir.

His talents flourished after he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London where he studied composition with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.

Around this time he took the post of organist at Christchurch in High Wycombe, a post that he enjoyed a great deal and one that he would return to following the war.

It was here, while living with the Chapman family, that he wrote some of his greatest works and where his time was chronicled in Anthony Bodens book, Stars in a Dark Sky.

His first book of poetry, Severn and Somme, was published in 1917, with his second book, War Embers in 1919. After battling with manic depression, he returned to his Royal College studies and his role as organist in High Wycombe in 1919 and at the end of the year had written many poems and set more than 40 songs to music.

A few years later mental health problems saw him returning to his family in Gloucester and afterwards a hospital for the mentally ill.

He died on December 26, 1937.