A PIANO used by a famous singer-songwriter has been donated to a Hereford bar – where the owner has the same name as the make of the instrument.

Lisbee Stainton has just released her fifth studio album, Then Up, and is performing at The Courtyard in Hereford this month.

She grew up in Pontrilas, where her parents still live, and where the piano which she learnt to play on still sat, despite Lisbee soon turning her back on piano to play the guitar instead.

Her father, Clive, when looking at the piano was surprised to see the maker was Robert Bennett, which is the name of his former bank manager and now owner of the Gordon Bennetts bar in St Peters Street.

Clive said: “My wife at some point had said, ‘That piano that Lisbee used to play at home, she never plays it anymore and we haven’t had it tuned for years.’

“I looked at it and my eyes nearly fell out my sockets when I saw Robert Bennett. I said that needs to go to Rob’s new bar.”

He went on to phone a piano shop in Worcester who told him Robert Bennett was a make made in the 50s.

Clive said: “I asked my wife, Marion, how long Lisbee had played the piano for and she said from about the age of six to six and a half! She then played guitar and has done ever since. She is now 29.

“But the funny thing is when Lisbee’s first album came out when she was 18, the record company found a funny little song which she had written and played when she was about three/four and she recorded it on her little Fisher Price tape recorder. They reclaimed it and digitised it and it is the last track on her album (it is called Happy Words). It is quite possible that that very early little song was played on that piano.”

Rob was Clive’s bank manager for years at Barclays before he opened Gordon Bennetts last September.

Rob said: “I have been to see Lisbee perform before as Clive has invited me a few times in the past.

“When he said her old piano was available and the maker’s name was my name, I thought why not.”

Known as ‘The English Rose With The 8-String Guitar’, Lisbee will be performing her folk acoustic music at The Courtyard on May 27 at 8pm. Tickets are £15.