Snowdrop festival attracts fans from Europe

ENTHUSIASTS from the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria were amongst the hundreds of people who enjoyed the annual Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival.

Visits to the Yeo Valley Garden, the 70-acres of gardens at Downside Abbey and the privately-owned Compton Court, near Shepton Mallet, were all fully booked and families enjoyed snowdrop-themed sessions at the pop-up Create#8 arts venue in the town centre.

The community-run festival celebrates the life and work of James Allen, the Victorian “Snowdrop King” who was born and lived in the town and hybridised wild snowdrops.

Wassail welcomes spring

FROME’S delayed community wassail event at Weylands has finally gone ahead after being postponed in January due to bad weather.

Led by Frome Street Bandits, a wassail bard and a group of mummers playing “tree guardians, dozens of families joined in the celebrations at the orchard of fruit and nut trees planted next to the River Frome in November 2022.