Arts and crafts in Somerset

Somerset (including Bath and North East Somerset, Mendip, North Somerset, Sedgemoor, South Somerset, Taunton Deane and West Somerset) is in the South West of England. It has a population of around 900,000 and covers approximately 420,000 hectares. Here is a list of nearby or neighbouring counties: Bristol, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire.

Somerset is located to the north east of Devon, has a coastline on the Bristol Channel and the River Severn Estuary and its county town is Taunton. Farming is an important part of the local economy and includes the production of cheese, wool and willow, which is used in basket making. The county was settled during the Palaeolithic era and its archaeology includes 13,000 year old cave art found in the Cheddar Gorge, Neolithic stone circles and Iron Age hill forts. Visitors to The Museum of Somerset can see exhibits which reflect the counties history, using multimedia and displays such as the Frome Hoard, which is the largest single collection of Roman coins found in Britain. Evidence of Roman occupation includes temples, villas and the famous baths of the city of Bath, which during the eighteenth century was a centre of fashion and attracted artists such as Thomas Gainsborough and writers such as Jane Austen. Performing arts venues in Somerset include the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil, the Playhouse in Weston-super-Mare and the Theatre Royal in Bath.

In 1987 Bath became a World Heritage site and its many attractions include theatre productions, cultural festivals, museums such as the Fashion Museum, galleries such as the Victoria Art Gallery and Holburne Museum of Art and the cities Georgian architecture. Somerset has a long tradition of folk arts and starting as a music festival in September 1970, the now world famous Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts became an annual event in 1980, taking place during June in Pilton, near Shepton Mallet. Glastonbury also plays a central role in the Arthurian legends, which have inspired works of art for hundreds of years. Across Somerset there are thousands of listed buildings, hundreds of monuments and many conservation areas, parks and gardens. National Trust properties include Tyntesfield, a Victorian Gothic Revival house decorated with stone carvings, and Montacute House, an Elizabethan mansion which houses a number of Tudor and Elizabethan portraits, a range of period furnishings and textiles and has picturesque formal gardens. Other attractions in Somerset include Glastonbury Abbey, Wells Cathedral, Dunster Castle, Clevedon Pier, Cheddar Gorge Craft Village, Barrington Court and Somerset Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury.