SOUTH Somerset District Council is working with organisations including the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust to save the rare Shrill Carder bee. The council’s team at Ham Hill Country Park has started habitat management to encourage the bees to recolonise from an existing population nearby. The work is centred around the hay meadows in the flat…
THE Cleveland Pools Trust, which looks after Bath’s 200 year-old open-air lido, has been granted £56,300 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to assist with the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the development of the development project. The pandemic and lockdown forced the trust team to adapt to home working. Various community plans…
WHAT more apt venue for cycling theatricals The Handlebards than the home of Moulton Cycles in Bradford-on-Avon? And what lovelier setting to watch a hilarious three-wheeled version of Romeo and Juliet on the night before the imposition of Boris’s latest three-word slogan, the Rule of Six? The company usually tours in two groups, boys and…
SAMUEL Beckett, according to the Amateur Players of Sherborne programme, wrote “Art has nothing to do with clarity, does not dabble in the clear and does not make clear,” … and there’s me thinking that the present government doesn’t understand The Arts. Sherborne’s open air production of Beckett’s masterpiece was the result of a happenstance…
WITH the ten minutes notice in which our leaders specialise, the intrepid alfresco theatre companies of England were told that they could go ahead with outdoor performances. Illyria was one of the first four to take up the challenge, creating a Covid-secure bubble in which to tour a delightful, satirical, hilarious three-person retelling of Kenneth…
WHAT more perfect way to celebrate a return to live performance than a concert in the beautiful gardens of Springhead at Fontmell Magna – and that’s how conductor and Dorset farmer John Eliot Gardiner reconnected his singers and musicians with their audience. Testing Springhead’s Covid arrangements, an invited audience was led to separated blocks of…
OUR diaries, like those of many thousands (millions) of people, have been empty for weeks. Suddenly, we had not one but two events to go to, both on the same day – a private view at The Art Stable and a sale and tasting at preserve maker Ajar Of’s “Jammery” at Hazelbury Bryan. Small steps, but…
THE story of Nicholas McCarthy’s young life so far has been one of challenge, determination, tenacity and success. He shot to fame in 2012 at the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games in London where he joined the likes of the band Coldplay. It was apt that a pianist of just 23 years and born…
WHO needs Easter eggs when you can have the real life drama and delight of peregrine falcons laying eggs and nurturing their clutch on one of Britain’s greatest gothic cathedrals. The Salisbury Cathedral peregrines have two eggs, which can be seen via the peregrine webcam (see below). The cathedral team, led by Gary Price, the…
THE Apple Tree Farm Shop at Brimsmore Gardens in Yeovil has installed a milk station, which dispenses semi-skimmed milk from Trewithen Dairy in Cornwall. Adding to the multi-award-winning farm shop’s growing list of green credentials, the new milk station will help customers reduce their single-use plastic waste, while continuing to support a dairy that practises…