Somerset & the Green Scythe Festival

We're just back from a week in Somerset the highlight of which was the 5th West Country Scythe Festival, held at Muchelney on the levels. The Thorney Lakes camp-site is just round the corner from John Leach's pottery which is well worth a long visit, but lock up your wallet unless you really mean it (we have a growing collection of John Leach's pottery collected over the years).

I will post more details of the scything courses and competition shortly in a separate article. Meanwhilst you can find scythe information here at the scythe shop and also Sean Hellman's blog article on the scythe festival


This part of Somerset is dotted with traditional orchards, many of which are cider trees. The Dabinett cider apple is a local one and one of my favourites. I always throught the word gribble was made up, but in fact the Dabinett is a gribble, or self sown seedling, of the Chisel Jersey variety of cider apple.


The Somerset levels is a place with big skies and we were lucky to have great weather for most of the week. Just up the road in the village of Muchelney, is the School Farm shop. It didn't take us long to find it as they serve excellent home made cream teas as well as selling their own meat and vegetables, and of course the local cider and beer.



Quite inexplicably I seem to have taken a picture of the tractor display instead of the tea shop. We soon made friends with the family who run the traditional small mixed farm and I learnt that they have farmed here for 4 generations. Almost as long as the tractors I think. Graham is rightly proud of his ability to run the farm without buying a new tractor every year.


The site is only a couple of miles from Burrow Hill cider farm at Kingsbury Episcopi. Just as well we didn't have to lug the cider too far on our bicycles. At Burrow Hill as well as making excellent cider they have also revived the ancient art of making Cider Brandy by distilling the cider. Their website is here - The Somerset Cider Brandy Co


The day of the festival dawned misty and warm. Not too hard to tell that we would have a lovely day as the pollarded withies loomed out of the mist. The withies are used in the willow weaving industry, traditionally for basketry. The industry was in terminal decline, but recently seems to have stabilised, partly due to the demand for balloon baskets and coffins as well as the more traditional shapes and sizes. So it's good to know that stripping the willow is coming back into fashion once again.




Although I had not planned on it, I took part in the competition on the Sunday. The heats were aptly named as the temperature climbed.



Falling asleep in the tent to the sound of local band Fallen Apple playing in the marquee on Sunday night. We greatly enjoyed the cider, cream teas, cycling and of course the scything. We'll be back.