A trip to the Medieval City of Wells, Somerset

Firstly, apologies for the late posting of this blog, I haven't had the energy or focus to have posted this when I said I would... anyhow let's get going!

Believe me when I say this... Wells is a gorgeous city.

It has the right to be called England's smallest city because of the fascinating, awe inspiring and beautiful 13th Century cathedral held within the centre.

I have visited twice since living in Shepton Mallet and will be going again when my lovely best friend comes to visit for a few days this coming week and I'm so excited to take her!

Our first visit was when my husband and I decided we needed to go out for the day. This was on 26th August. So we headed on a walk to the bus stop by Tesco and had a bit of time to spare so of course we picked up some sweets for the road!

The road leading up to Wells on the bus was gorgeous, in the distance we could see the cathedral standing out in the blazing blue skies. We came off in town by about 11.45 and had a little walk round the town first up and down the high street to see what shops and cafe's were around. We found a nice little art shop called Cinnamon Corner and we popped in to have a look. They have a lovely range of handmade gifts, decorative ornaments and figures and beautiful pieces of artwork.

Click here to see more info on this shop

Soon enough we were hungry and hot enough to need to sit down to have something to eat. So we opted for a local café and stumbled upon this lovely little place called Pickwick's Country Kitchen.

Drink wise I opted for a cappuccino while my husband went for a ginger beer.

It felt very vintage and countryside which I thought was very apt for the Somerset lifestyle

Lunchtime! Salmon and cream cheese bagel for me and ham and cheese panini for the hubby

It was a lovely lunch and we then went for a walk up to the Cathedral to have a look at the outside as we didn't quite fancy popping in as we would be having my husband's Dad and Step-Mum coming to visit and thought it better we wait to explore it with them. So we explored the outside instead as it was such a beautiful day.

Look how stunning and grand the front entrance is!

And this was the side.

It was quite hot in the sun and I was started to feel a bit unwell so we headed back home but eager to explore more on the next visit... which only happened to be 2 days later!

Our 2nd visit however did not provide such exceptional weather as the first time. It was the complete opposite. It started fairly lightly just drizzling on our way there, before it let rip at lunchtime in full on deluge of rain. We were hoping to go around the Bishop's Palace and Garden's but the weather didn't really hold out so we only ended up walking around the outside of it via the moat.

Entrance to the Palace

Stunning designs in the ceiling within the entrance archway

The Moat

Another view of the moat

And another view, even on a rainy day it's still so beautiful.

This beautiful mosaic art work is the Worminster Dragon. This is a special piece of work deisnged by Somerset Artist Kate Rattay. She enlisted the help of many pupils from a variety of schools in Wells to make the tiles for this mosaic.

The story itself is quite intriguing.

For more information on this you can visit:

Artist- Blog: https://katerattray.wordpress.com/  Website- http://www.rattraymosaics.co.uk/about/
Simple breakdown of  the story- http://primary.naace.co.uk/Paddington/schools/Wells/Dragon.html


Now we come to the beauty of the Cathedral... we escaped into the Cathedral because the rai had become so heavy and it was getting a bit cold. So here are some of the stunning photos I took from inside:

Beautiful and intricate detail but you can see where it has weathered in places

After an original tower showed huge cracks and wasn't stable enough, the solution was this stunning structure known as scissor arches constructed by mason William Joy between 1338-1348. 

The splendid Jesse Window dated from around 1340 and still fairly intact however is was noted to be deteriorating so conservation became crucial and solutions were made from 2011-2014 to keep it at it's best.

Intricate decoration on the ceiling

And again

Add caption

The Clock- Said to be the 2nd oldest clock mechanism in Britain!

The clock face shows the universe with the Sun and Moon revolving around a fixed Earth.

There are 2 jousting knights here which spin round above the clock at every quarter of the hour

The knights are accompanied by the Quarter Jack here who rings in the quarters with a click of his heels

In the Courtyard looking up to the Bell Tower

Thus ends this blog for now, as I said we will be visiting again soon and I hope if you get the chance to visit Wells you should, it has more to offer in the surrounding areas too but with the flowers in bloom on the streets too it really is a city to lift your spirits.

For any more information please visit: The Wells Somerset website and The Wells Cathedral website

Hopefully will have another blog up soon, maybe about Shepton Mallet itself or any other events or visits to places we go.

Until next time! Love where you live and live to love!

Christine x

My 1st Mid-Somerset Show Experience

Sunday 21st August 2016

What a day for an agricultural show! This year marked the 164th year and it certainly was a busy one!

The show was running from 9am till 6pm, I was up early enough at 7.15 but as I wanted my husband to join me I let him sleep in and we didn't head off until 11am.

We decked ourselves out in wellies and waterproof coats in case the weather was a bit naff. To be honest it wasn't so bad. It was a bit drizzly and windy at first and during the Equestrian Heavy Horse judging it cleared up slightly. The horses were stunning and magnificent beyond belief.

After a while we made our way round the vast amount of stalls and local businesses. We ended up at the Brother's Drinks company and tried a blend of cider called Toffee Apple cider. It was so sweet and went down very easily!

It was a very busy lunch time so we headed over to another field section known as the Vintage field. It was filled with vintage and older generation engines and vehicles mostly.

Absolutely love the colours on this engine and very well and simplistically decorated.

This is a Millars Cement Mixer fitted with a Powell 1 1/2 HP petrol engine 1925 exhibited by Graham Trott Taunton

And of course Somerset's key vehicle through the years... the trustworthy tractor!

Once we had a nice look through all of this we then went through to where the good stuff was... the Arts and Crafts and Food Marquees! There was some fantastic creations which were all made earlier in the morning during some classes and they were then judged on their efforts. These ranged from children's classes to adult classes and some of them were beautiful.

This community clearly has some extremely talented individuals!

The detail on this teapot is right up my street!

The detail on the cups was even better and more colourful!

A stunning floral decorative display which won 1st prize by Mrs Ann Smith in the Split Level Arrangement Class

In homage of the Queen's birthday this year this beautiful piece won 1st prize by Mrs Sylvia Ingham in the Congratulations Your Majesty class

In the food marquee we were bewildered with the amount of cheese that was displayed and judged!

We also came to this local Devon business called Flapjackery and it looked and smelled amazing, it tasted pretty great too.

It was getting late so I picked up some naughty lunch of chicken nugget and chips to eat while we watched a falconry and gun dog show.

Most beautiful 8 week old English Springer Spaniel puppy I've ever seen, extremely smart and obedient and made me exclaim "aww" an awful lot!

 Finally my hubby was getting tired and ended up heading home but I wanted to explore a bit more until 5pm. So I wandered around for an hour and came across some show jumping, gorgeous fudge and a lovely gentleman from the Somerset Wildlife Trust.

Quite happy with my photography skills taking these shots and the riders were brilliant.

The stall I brought some homemade fudge from.

The mouth watering pieces of fudge included the flavours; clotted cream, vanilla, butter tablet, caramel and Oreo cookie... *drooling*

This was the stand set up and I spoke to Steve. A lovely bloke and I hope to maybe work or volunteer for this trust in the future.

So all in all it was a fantastic day, thankfully the weather got better but I'm glad to have attended my first country/agriculture show in such a lovely town. I'm sure I'll be going many times in the years to come. However, it is sad to me that they will be moving it into a new field area as the area used this year (and probably many previous years) will be turned into 500 homes. The planning is in place but they are still waiting for public opinion to be voiced and see the results.

Stay posted for another post later this week which will be about our trip to the smallest city of Wells.

Until the next post, take care and be happy!

Christine x