MUGWORT doesn’t have the most appealing name in English, but its scientific name “artemisia” will be familiar to anyone interested in the history of herbs. Its medical uses included preventing weariness on a journey, according to a 16th-century medical text that is the inspiration behind a herbal border at the National Trust’s Lytes Cary Manor…
THERE’s a new literary festival on the Dorset calendar – Lyme Crime, from 26th to 28th June, with a line-up that includes Luke Jennings, author of the Killing Eve novels. The festival aims to bring the best talents in crime and thriller fiction to the town for a relaxed weekend of talks, conversation, readings and…
FOR thousands of music-lovers, John Peel was THE voice of radio, so John Peel’s Shed, an affectionate tribute to the inspirational DJ and broadcaster, on tour with Take Art in Somerset, is a welcome opportunity to remember the great man. The tour continues at the Black Swan at Langport on Friday 20th March, Norton sub…
ARTEMIS Storytelling will unleash the power of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on the audience at Exeter’s Cygnet Theatre on Friday 13th March. Storyteller Ben Haggarty joins musician Sianed Jones for the performance, which starts at 7.30pm. Described as an explosive new take on a modern classic, this will be an intimate Cygnet evening that’s suitable for…
LEADING musicians, athletes, dancers and artists from around the world will gather in Salisbury for this year’s International Arts Festival, running from Friday 22nd May to Saturday 6th June. Performers will include Hofesh Shechter and his dance company, violinist Harriet Mackenzie, inspirational conductor Charles Hazlewood jazz star Jacqui Dankworth, Paralympian Ade Adepitan and world champion…
SOUTH Somerset-based Where West Begins has one of its occasional pop-up film nights on Friday 6th March, International Women’s Day, showing the powerful Syrian documentary For Sama, at Wincanton. The film is described as an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war, “a love letter from a young mother to her daughter.”…
IF you were born with the name Codd, raised by a loving, close-knit circle of family and friends, grew up by the sea on the Dorset coast and swam like a mermaid, the last thing you would expect is to develop an all-consuming fear of the creatures that live in the ocean. What are the…
JAMES Crowden, best known to Fine Times Recorder readers and West Country people generally as a local historian, poet and cider expert, was a soldier for some years after leaving university. After he left the Army in 1976, he travelled to one of the most remote and inaccessible countries in the world, the Himalayan kingdom…
WYLYE valley artists Nick Andrew and Tanya Hinton are back at Shaftesbury Arts Centre gallery with a new exhibition, The Winter Visitor, showing new winter paintings and illustrations for a new book for children. Continuing to 10th March, the exhibition features Tanya’s distinctive and engaging wildlife paintings on reclaimed wood of animals and wildlife and…
ONE of Wiltshire’s beautiful hidden gems, Great Chalfield Manor, near Bradford-on-Avon, is the subject of an illustrated talk at Gold Hill Museum, Shaftesbury, on Tuesday 3rd May, at 2.30pm. The Tudor country house, with its lovely garden, has been featured in many films and television period dramas, including Wolf Hall and Poldark. In 2008’s film…