Culture of Somerset - Art, Music and Literature

Art, Music and Literature

Traditional folk music, both song and dance, was important in Somerset's agrarian communities. Somerset songs were collected by Cecil Sharp and incorporated into a number of works including Holst's A Somerset Rhapsody. Halsway Manor near Williton is an international centre for folk music. The tradition continues today with groups such as The Wurzels, who specialise in Scrumpy and Western music. The number of Morris dance sides declined drastically following the First World War, but saw a resurgence during the 1950s, and Morris dancing is now a common sight at events throughout the summer.

Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote while staying in Coleridge Cottage, Nether Stowey. The writer Evelyn Waugh spent his last years in the village of Combe Florey. The novelist John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) lived in the Somerset village of Montacute from 1885 until 1894 and his novels Wood and Stone (1915) and A Glastonbury Romance (1932) are set in Somerset. His brothers, T. F. Powys and Llewelyn Powys, were also successful writers.

Many traditional rural trades such as basket making have survived, and many other crafts such as jewelry, leatherwork and pottery can be found at studios around the county.

An annual competition for the Bard of Bath aims to find Bath's best poet, singer or storyteller. The Bard uses the title to develop artistic projects in the area and leads evening bardic walks around the city. The title resurrects an Iron-Age Celtic Druid tradition where Druids were the law-makers, judges and ceremonial leaders, Ovates were mediums, healers and prophets and Bards were poets, musicians and history-keepers. All of them held high status and a place in mystical/religious circles.