A Trip to Deepest Somerset

Moving things around in the house, so what was our former utility area has now become quite a tidy little work space.

All the moving around of stuff led us to think about looking at more furniture, so we went off to Haskins in Shepton Mallet. I was taken with this fetching blue leather number, but Su was not impressed:-)

Shepton Mallet is an old market town with some interesting architecture amongst the 60s/70s/80s neo-brutalism. This is the recently restored market cross

Complete with County of Somerset Regulations

Great timbers in the roof.

This building looks Georgian, with some great detailing above the top floor window.

This dove let me get pretty close before it flew away

Alms houses, arranged around the old church

Funny how the middle statue is much more eroded than its flanking companions

A different style of graffiti to Bath - quite quirky.

An expressive few lines..

Quite a few of these plaques around the town, showing it in more prosperous times.  

This is the same street, with  the same buildings, but much poorer.

Shepton is not that far from anywhere - many people know it because they go through it on the way to Glastonbury Festival, at nearby Pilton. It is also famous for its prison.

After our stroll round, we went for lunch at Kilver Court, a restored establishment and gardens. We did not go in today, as we had Bella with us and they have changed their policy about dogs since we last went.

Had a great lunch, both of us with some spelt.  The owner grows spelt nearby and makes a bit of a feature of it in the cafe/restaurant and the shop.  In there, we saw these nicely designed cycling/skating helmets

They also have a designer outlet (and are next door to Mulberry who are anything but cheap).  Ironic in such a depressed town

Across the road is where Blackthorn cider is made, and lurking in the trees is a giant Babycham deer!

After this,it was definitely time to give Bella a walk, so we drove up to Clutton woods and walked down towards Maynard Terrace where we used to live

On such a dismal day, it was hard to recall its charms, although it was nice to bump into a few former neighbours.

There are plans to build in a green belt field opposite the terrace (it is basically surrounded by fields, which was one of its attractions - and drawbacks - when we lived there).  A local campaign against development was in evidence in a few windows we passed.

Walking back up towards the woods, we were amazed to see that this "topiary" ship is still in existence - not the most impressive specimen!

Certainly away from traffic fumes, this fence post was dripping with lichen

Popped into the Co-op at Marksbury on the way back to Bath, and was not too surprised to see that the Easter chocolate marketing has already started - over three months to go...

Struck by this car registration - why would you choose "ZZZ" as your personalised number plate?

Last day of 2011 tomorrow - a year of many changes for us.  Looking forward to the generous 6 minutes fireworks display at the Rec, which we plan to watch from up the hill on Claremeont if we can stagger there in time:-)!