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Somerset runs on its own frequency, low-hummed and deeply tuned to the land. Cathedral cities rise from wild uplands. Meadows rewild. Orchards endure. This southwestern county holds a quiet duality, the weight of heritage set against a new creative pulse. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south and Devon to the west, part of England’s slow-rolling cultural current.
The beautiful city of Bath leads with architecture, a Georgian stage of crescents, limestone grace and neoclassical poise. Beneath the paving, Roman baths still steam. Overhead, an independent cultural scene stirs. Behind the elegance sits an edge, small-press publishers, off-grid bakeries, vintage dealers stitched into the historic cloth.
Bruton is Somerset’s creative nucleus. Once a drowsy market town, it now houses some of the UK’s most sought-after contemporary galleries, including Hauser & Wirth Somerset, a reimagined farmstead of minimalist pavilions and Piet Oudolf gardens. Artists, collectors and design nomads orbit here. The food culture works at a slower frequency, precise and grounded. Chefs settle for soil, for producers, for community. Bread is aged to flavour, coffee ground with care, and farm shops curated with the same eye as galleries.
Other notable villages for trailhunters, are South Petherton and Batcombe. South Petherton lies further south, a village washed in the pink glow of hamstone. Here, food is craft and patience, raw milk dairies, hand-reared pork, nut butters milled in small batches. It is quietly self-sufficient, a place that connects you directly to what you eat and the land it came from. Batcombe shifts the register again. Remote, steep-laned, guarded by timber gates and slate roofs, it rests in a cinematic valley.
Glastonbury tilts the compass. Part medieval pilgrimage, part countercultural capital, it sits on the Somerset Levels with a view to the Tor rising against the sky. The Abbey ruins carry whispers of Arthurian legend and the Holy Grail. Market streets mix incense and folklore with independent bookshops, cafes and musicians playing on corners. Every summer, nearby fields transform into the world’s most famous festival stage, but the town’s mythic pull lingers long after the crowds are gone.
Landscape binds the county. The Mendip Hills to the north, the Blackdowns and Quantocks to the west, and the open sweep of the Somerset Levels form a geography that breathes wide and slow. The Levels are prehistoric in feel, flat and shimmering, edged by willow and water. Ancient trackways cross the wetlands. Neolithic echoes lie in the soil, giving the county a quiet mythic undertone. The county remains the UK’s heartland for basket willow, grown in the damp soils of the Levels for centuries and still cultivated, processed and woven by historic firms such as Coates, supplying everything from traditional baskets to riverbank erosion defences.
Wells, England’s smallest city, delivers architecture with precision. Its cathedral is early Gothic mastery in stone, flanked by cloisters and walled gardens. Swans glide the moat of the medieval bishop’s palace as if nothing has changed in centuries.
The county’s apple culture thrives on historic bittersweet varieties, while markets in Frome and Taunton and events like the Somerset Food Trail and the Royal Bath & West Show showcase its bounty. A shift toward regenerative agriculture is gathering pace, matched by a continued emphasis on craft heritage, from willow weaving to artisanal cheesemaking. Food here is not simply local, it is lived. Somerset gave birth to cheddar and never let go of cider. The producers work in lockstep with the land, regenerative growers, orchardists, cheesemakers, fermenters and distillers.
Somerset is an English county fostering slow regenerative agriculture. It is a patron of the arts and crafts and a hotbed for creative and design talent, including fantastic boutiques, galleries, headliner chefs, restaurants, and design-led hotels and guesthouses.
Loved by 19th century Romantic poets, prolific painters, families, hikers and dog walkers alike, this watercolour-come-to-life, much-loved corner of England holds some of the finest walking trails and views in the world and was even home to everyone’s favourite, the author Beatrix Potter. Known locally as Lakeland, this land of lakes, this almost offensively attractive Lake District, certainly goes some way to putting the ‘Great’ in ‘Great Britain’.
London really needs no introduction but it is important to keep an open mind when thinking of the British capital city - it may not be the city that never sleeps, but it is the city that keeps morphing like no other. It continually changes, shifts, re-invents itself and then clings on to the past.
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Get the insider news and lowdown on what we've been up to, where we've been, and who we've met along the way. Be the first to discover new places and get the scoop on our favourites.