A land of milk and Cheddar

In their latest celebration of West Country people, places and produce, ‘Deepest’ book authors Fanny Charles and Gay Pirrie-Weir explore why Somerset is so different from its neighbouring counties

- Fanny Charles and Gay Pirrie-Weir

WHAT is it that makes Somerset so special? The answer, as Arthur Fallowfield would have said, lies in the soil. Trodden and worked by generations of people and their animals, what is arguably England’s most fashionable county now produces some of our most exciting food, from legendary cider and traditional Cheddar cheese to yoghurt, charcuterie, oysters and even savoury granola.

The food community was one of the most compelling aspects of our home county when we started on our third ‘Deepest’ book. Following in the successful footsteps of Deepest Dorset (2016) and Deepest Wiltshire (2019), Deepest Somerset again sets out to capture the roots of the unique county, neighbouring the others, but different in so many ways. The sales of all three books benefit local charities and each one is based on the ceremonial boundaries of the counties, before unitary authorities were dreamt of and edges massaged to suit electoral patterns.

Our Somerset takes in Bath and parts of Bristol. It’s home to nuclear-power station Hinkley Point C, now Europe’s biggest construction site, Glastonbury Festival at Michael Eavis’s Pilton family farm, Cheddar Gorge, Henry the smiling vacuum cleaner and, increasingly, figures from the worlds of finance, showbusiness, politics and the media, nestling alongside the well-hidden landed gentry.

The introduction to Deepest Somerset, written by The Prince of Wales, stresses the importance of ‘agri-culture’—both parts of the word: ‘We dwell within the landscape that feeds us and within the culture that is derived from maintaining its rhythms and natural cycle.’