Born in Tilbury, Essex, Noel studied art at the Central School of Arts and Crafts before completing a teaching diploma at London University.  In the early 1980s he and his wife Pam settled in West Cornwall in the village of Gulval near Penzance. By that time he had already achieved some recognition with sales at the RA Summer exhibition, and was showing at local venues in Cornwall such as the Salthouse Gallery in St Ives and other small galleries in Porthleven and Penzance. His subjects are landscapes, seascapes and abstracts.

In 1987 he embarked on managing his own gallery in Bread Street, Penzance, which operated for some years until the couple re-established their studio at a larger farm toward Land's End. Noel's work takes inspiration from the simple architectural forms of rural cottages, the sun, and the moon against backgrounds both geometric and mystical. These can be viewed on MySpace and YouTube, where their jointly performed music may also be heard.

Both Pam and Noel are avid and talented musicians. Pam is a professionally trained violinist and composer, and plays all manner of string instruments such as the Celtic harp. Noel plays a long list of instruments including the bouzouki, guitar, whistles and mandolin. Their jazz band performs locally at pubs and clubs in the West Cornwall area, and they also produces CDs of their haunting music, much of it composed by Pam. Their projects are built into suites of work that incline towards gypsy, Celtic and jazz forms.