By Harry Mottram: Two priests arguing in a café over Manchester City, a nun filling her supermarket trolley with pork and beer, a Roman wedding party spilling onto the street and a tourist looking …

By Harry Mottram: It’s hard to feel sympathy for disillusioned and hapless protagonist Tony Last in Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust – that is until he becomes lost in the Amazon jungle. Then there…

By Harry Mottram: A huge dark creature emerged from the hedge in front of my motorbike. I braked and stopped in the middle of the lane. It met my stare with its luminous green eyes for several seco…

By Harry Mottram: It was May 1980 and after spending the previous four years at art college in Taunton I left to experience the cold realities of a much-changed world. Unemployed, skint and with a …

By Harry Mottram: Charities are no different from businesses – some are tiny and run by volunteers, some large run by paid staff while others are vast international concerns. Nearly all rely on gra…

The Rising Stars Series sees former pupils, now firmly on the road to stardom, return to Wells Cathedral School to perform where their talents were first nurtured. We are thrilled to welcome back Nurr...

By Harry Mottram: It was a birthday treat from my son Ashley who invited me along to SWIG (Shipham Wine Intoxicated Group) – maybe Investigating Group – at Shipham Village Hall on Frida…

By Harry Mottram: It was clearly a chaotic scene in the early 2000s as visitors to Hestercombe Gardens near Taunton tried to park their Ford Escorts and Mini Metros outside the 19th century country…

By Harry Mottram: The USA have hiked interest rates to 4% today (17th September 2026) sending economic ripples across the globe. In Britain on the same day the Bank of England have opted to hold in…

It takes ten people to call for an election to a parish council, but that doesn’t mean there will be candidates. And as in Porlock, it can leave an endless cycle of elections with no candidates.

By Harry Mottram: Joe Sugg, George Clarke, Angela Rippon, Ruth Langsford, Bill Bailey and this year Tabby Stoecker from Bath University – all contestants – or rather celebrities – on BBC1 TV’s…

By Harry Mottram: Firstly just a thank you for the people who create these wonderful knitted postbox toppers in Axbridge. This must read as autumnal bounty. Back to more news. The draft minutes of …

Katie Derham and Nick Mohammed host classical music’s biggest party, with star soloists, all the traditions and sing-along fun.

By Harry Mottram: Following the visit of Californian Julie Durbin in 2023 another Durbin (no relation) is visiting the town to research the ancestors of the family. The Durbins date back in Ax…

By Harry Mottram: Axbridge Town Square was taken over by a film company Simon Mayhew-Archer, and Big Talk Studios, Mayhay Studios and CBS Studios this week – in a co-production filming a comed…

Book Review: The Correspondent. By Virginia Evans. It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry in reading Virginia Evan’s breakout epistolary novel The Correspondent. At times it’s a laugh out loud r…

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

By Harry Mottram: Nobody is quite sure when the first Axbridge Progressive Supper took place but at a guess it was around 40 years ago in the 1980s after leading figures in the town established the…

By Harry Mottram: Some Axbridge diary dates coming up. Send Axbridge events to me and I’ll try to keep the list updated. Email: harryfmottram@gmail.com I’ll also post on my website at www…

By Harry Mottram: Despite the drought this year and a hosepipe ban in place West Country Water and Environment (WCWE) have confirmed there’s no fast tracking of building Cheddar Reservoir 2. With t…

By Harry Mottram: I saw a book in Bristol Library in my lunch hour entitled ‘How to be a Feature Writer’ and I read it and thought, ‘that’s me.’ As an advertising copywriter in Bristol, I spent eve…

Journey through 1000 years of classical music with Gillian Moore and eminent historians.

Fatalities included people who inhaled toxic fumes from fires or became trapped inside burning homes.

By Harry Mottram: Free to thousands of homes in the city and at selected outlets the September issue of Bath Voice has hit the streets – and of course you can read it here. Packed with what’s on, even...

By Harry Mottram: Thousands of places in England take part in the Heritage Open Days in September – many organise events to celebrate our history and culture by throwing open the doors of museums, chu...

By Harry Mottram: The road linking Axbridge to Wells is to be closed for most of September to allow Wales & West Utilities to carry out gas pipe works. In phase one the A371 will be closed from…

By Harry Mottram: Anyone who has ridden, driven or cycled around the traffic interchange outside Compton Manor at the end of the west end of Axbridge will know how precarious it is for road users. …

By Harry Mottram: Whether it was her time at Kings of Wessex, her stories in the Cheddar Valley Gazette or her successful campaign to save Cheddar Library from closure, many people in Axbridge will…

By Harry Mottram: Some Axbridge diary dates coming up. Send Axbridge events to me and I’ll try to keep the list updated. Email: harryfmottram@gmail.com I’ll also post on my website at www…

By Harry Mottram: If the heat wasn’t bad enough and the way it affects logistics then there’s something even more troubling for hauliers: the hike in diesel prices. The fall-out from the conti…

By Harry Mottram: Firstly, an apology as last week on this website I ran the news of a hosepipe ban in parts of Somerset announced by South West Water. It was for areas close to the Devon border an…

The seven-figure payment was given to Steve Buck as part of package to persuade him to join the troubled utility company.

By Harry Mottram: With the cost-of-living crisis continuing with the new Burnham labour Government cutting VAT on fuel bills to help households there’s also more encouraging news with inflatio…

By Harry Mottram: The Blackpool printing firm Mark Two Print Limited is in the process of being liquidated by Jessica Leeming and David Acland of FRP Advisory who were appointed at the beginni…

Imperial War Museum image of Italian PoWs being escorted by British troops to camps in Africa Somerset has been enriched by immigrants since the year dot. Although it’s Syrian immigrants who make t…