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Latest Somerset articles

Badenoch is trying to match Farage step for step – but it’s a dance of death for the Tories | Polly Toynbee

Badenoch is trying to match Farage step for step – but it’s a dance of death for the Tories | Polly Toynbee

At conference here in Birmingham I’ve found a growing swell of opposition to the leader – and a vision of the Conservative party to come You can walk all the way from Somerset to Sussex without crossing a Tory-run constituency, if you wish. You could also travel through each of the counties of Wiltshire, Hampshire, Dorset and Surrey without setting foot in Tory lands. They are now mainly Liberal Democrat, and there’s not one Tory MP in all of Oxfordshire. Is Kemi Badenoch bothered? Everything she does seems cleverly designed to keep those places lost to her forever as she woos Reform voters, unsuccessfully. The more she leans right, the more she repels home counties moderates. Those Reform voters are not coming back, psephologists say. Without reclaiming the old “blue wall”, there is no hope, ever, of a Tory majority, say both profs Tim Bale and Rob Ford and just about every political authority you care to ask. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

BirminghamHampshireKemi Badenoch
Oct 5, 2026 · byThe Guardian
Country diary: Which tree sounds the best in the wind? Take a bough, the poplar | Derek Niemann

Country diary: Which tree sounds the best in the wind? Take a bough, the poplar | Derek Niemann

Frome, Somerset: With a sway and a swoosh, we’re entering the season to enjoy psithurism – the aural quality of the breeze in the trees The wind-catchers along the bottom of the valley miss nothing. Even the lightest breath has them whispering. And when the wind strengthens, they do a good imitation of the river streaming over boulders below their feet. Truly, when it blows, it pours. Pass a poplar and you are enjoying the best example of psithurism, the sound of wind in trees. All this growing season, I have listened politely to oaks, alders and willows, but if I rocked up in a pub looking for chatty company, I’d want a poplar on the bar stool next to me. Continue reading...

Somerset
Oct 1, 2026 · byThe Guardian
Somerset pair Overton and Luff win PCA awards

Somerset pair Overton and Luff win PCA awards

Somerset duo Craig Overton and Sophie Luff have won the headline accolades at the 2026 PCA awards in partnership with Toyota while emerging England stars Sonny Baker and Tilly Corteen-Coleman also received coveted honours at Exhibition White City.

Heidi Overtonneutral
EnglandHeidi OvertonSomerset
Sep 30, 2026 · bySky Sports
County cricket 2026 awards: the good, the bad and the best man

County cricket 2026 awards: the good, the bad and the best man

Featuring: a teenager taking a debut hat-trick, a win for one of cricket’s nice guys, and a hard summer for ground staff Tom Norton Not many people take a hat-trick on their Championship debut. Even fewer when they’re a teenager. But in early May, 18-year-old Norton roared in like the north wind against Somerset and wrecked their top order. His delighted teammates chased him around Sophia Gardens, patting his impressive beard. By August, he’d been ruled out of the rest of the season with a stress fracture of the back. But, even without him, Glamorgan survived their first year back in the top tier, and batters will be nervously waiting in 2027. He made quite the first impression. Continue reading...

James NortonSomerset
Sep 29, 2026 · byThe Guardian
‘You can taste the land’: the Somerset farmer bringing wildflowers back to cheddar

‘You can taste the land’: the Somerset farmer bringing wildflowers back to cheddar

Tom Calver has sacrificed milk yields to give his cows a more varied diet of plants and believes the result is better cheese and richer farmland In the rolling hills of Somerset, hundreds of thousands of cows placidly munch lush green grass to produce milk for cheddar. But six fields stand out. Rather than uniform grass, they have technicolour wildflowers sprouting across the meadows. Farmer Tom Calver said that to allow the flowers to grow he has to keep fewer cows and leave some fields ungrazed as they mature. Continue reading...

Somerset
Sep 28, 2026 · byThe Guardian
Houses can be built on floodplains despite failing safety test, says high court

Houses can be built on floodplains despite failing safety test, says high court

Decision to allow development of 190 new homes in north Somerset sparks campaign for change in the law Houses can be built on floodplains even if they fail a crucial safety test, according to a high court judgment that will be of “immense interest” to developers across England and Wales. The ruling clears the way for a highly controversial development of 190 new homes on north Somerset’s floodplains, despite the site being in “flood zone 3a”, the highest level of flood risk before land is considered a functional floodplain. Continue reading...

EnglandSomersetȚara Galilor
Sep 27, 2026 · byThe Guardian
Warwickshire celebrate title and more from the County Championship final day – live

Warwickshire celebrate title and more from the County Championship final day – live

Updates from the final round of county cricket games Get in touch with Tanya on email or comment BTL Abell becomes the eighth Somerset cricketer to make 300 in an innings –after Justin Langer (twice), Tom Banton( last year), Viv Richards, Jimmy Cook, Graeme Smith, Harold Gimblett and James Hildreth. At a warm Taunton, where Surrey are still fielding in sunhats, some succour for Somerset fans. A first triple century for Tom Abell, 30 fours, eight sixes, 402 balls, and nearly nine hours of batting. Bravo! Continue reading...

SomersetTom BantonWarwickshire
Sep 27, 2026 · byThe Guardian
Warwickshire clinch County Championship title with victory over Leicestershire

Warwickshire clinch County Championship title with victory over Leicestershire

Warwickshire beat Leicestershire by an innings & 79 runs Ethan Bamber’s five-wicket haul seals title for Bears It had to be Ethan Bamber with the Championship winning nugget. As Warwickshire ’s beating heart dispatched two of Tom Scriven’s stumps, the players rushed into a victory huddle, non-playing members of the squad racing to join them, or, in the case of the injured Keith Barker, hobbling. Warwickshire’s ninth title, coming from behind to nip Somerset and Nottinghamshire on the nose, was a team performance built on the back of an astonishing season for Bamber. His 69 wickets make him the leading wicket-taker in Division One, backed up by Ed Barnard (30) and Olly Hannon-Dalby (28), while Sam Hain’s 1,048 runs were the spine and Rob Yates’s astonishing catches at slip the beauty spots. Continue reading...

LeicestershireSomersetWarwickshire
Sep 26, 2026 · byThe Guardian
Warwickshire closing on title v Leicestershire, Somerset v Surrey, and more: county cricket final round, day two – live

Warwickshire closing on title v Leicestershire, Somerset v Surrey, and more: county cricket final round, day two – live

All the latest on a crucial day of Championship action Warks blow through Leics | The Spin | Mail James Hello and welcome to day two of the final round of the 2026 County Championship. I’m on the way to Edgbaston where there is a chance Warwickshire are crowned today… or this being cricket, something completely different happens. That’s why we love it. Catch up on a round up of yesterday’s action below. I’ll post the scores on the doors and we’ll get into all the talking points. Continue reading...

LeicestershireSomersetWarwickshire
Sep 25, 2026 · byThe Guardian
‘Devastating’: council rejects Frome residents’ bid for regeneration project

‘Devastating’: council rejects Frome residents’ bid for regeneration project

Locals raised £1m for Mayday Saxonvale scheme involving homes and park but Somerset officials agreed deal with London-based real estate company A bold bid by residents of a progressive town in the English West Country who raised almost £1m to create what could have been the UK’s largest community-led regeneration project is in tatters. More than 1,000 residents of Frome in Somerset had clubbed together with the aim of building homes, workspaces, a riverside park and a lido on a brownfield area in their town centre. Continue reading...

LondonSomerset
Sep 25, 2026 · byThe Guardian
Somerset are poised to finish second again – and after 136 years it still hurts

Somerset are poised to finish second again – and after 136 years it still hurts

County Championship is treated like sporting Victoriana by the authorities but it’s some of the hardest cricket around and still means plenty – especially in Taunton Every English cricket season starts with an Indian spring now but they say this one will end in an Indian summer too. The forecast is warm and dry and this, at least, is one last late blessing for the County Championship. Warwickshire, 11 points clear at the top, host a dejected Leicestershire at Edgbaston. Somerset, second again, play Surrey at Taunton; Nottinghamshire, defending champions, have Yorkshire at Trent Bridge, although the chances are that if you’ve read this far into an article about the championship you already know all this. Continue reading...

County ChampionshipLeicestershireSomerset
Sep 23, 2026 · byThe Guardian
Dominic West backs ‘top shagger’ Byron in poetry battle with Bob Geldof

Dominic West backs ‘top shagger’ Byron in poetry battle with Bob Geldof

Actor hails ‘proto-rock star’ as best poet, while musician argues for ‘Ireland’s Shakespeare’ WB Yeats at Somerset festival Dominic West has said Lord Byron is his favourite poet because he was a “top shagger” and said he was not concerned the rise of AI might snuff out poetry. The actor was taking part in a “poetry battle” at the Big Brue festival in Somerset, against rock star Bob Geldof, who said he preferred the Irish poet WB Yeats to the excesses of Byron. Continue reading...

Dominic WestSomerset
Sep 20, 2026 · byThe Guardian
Yorkshire v Somerset, Sussex v Nottinghamshire: County Championship cricket, day four – live

Yorkshire v Somerset, Sussex v Nottinghamshire: County Championship cricket, day four – live

All the latest updates from around the county grounds Middlesex crisis deepens | Email Tanya or post BTL It was a tense day at Headingley, cold enough in the shade for the stewards to wear gloves, but hot on the pitch where Somerset wobbled but just about held on to their Championship dream. It took more than a session to break Yorkshire ’s overnight partnership of George Hill and Dom Bess, who played with swaggering patience in a seventh-wicket partnership of 166. Hill finally fell to a top-edged pull for a season’s best 89 to Craig Overton, who chased him to the rope to say well done. The former Somerset player Bess followed for 77, all material for Tom Abell’s best man’s speech at Bess’s wedding next month. Set 287, Somerset had a catastrophic start when Josh Thomas was caught behind in the first over, and a couple more wickets followed, the fielders providing regular reminders that the title has never gone to Taunton, before Abell and Tom Lammonby saw things through to the close. Tomorrow’s magic cider number is 214. Continue reading...

HeadingleySomersetSussex
Sep 18, 2026 · byThe Guardian
English Heritage trains new generation of scythers to maintain meadows and craft

English Heritage trains new generation of scythers to maintain meadows and craft

Initiative aims to keep alive age-old skill, and at Muchelney Abbey in Somerset improve habitat for rare shrill carder bee It sounds like something out of a Thomas Hardy novel: a merry band of men and women roaming the West Country cutting meadows by hand in exchange for hunks of bread and cheese. But the conservation charity English Heritage is recruiting a team of volunteer scythers to maintain 21st-century meadowland in the old-fashioned way. Continue reading...

Somerset
Sep 17, 2026 · byThe Guardian