Somerset Lost and Found

Phil returns to the 800 year old church in Kingston St Mary with local historian Ray Stokes, to see what impact the civil war, the industrial revolution and the Victorian era had on a typical Somerset village church.

Drug addiction, marital breakups, professional rivalries - yes life for an 18th century creative artist wasn't so different from today. So Coleridge found when he settled in Nether Stowey north of Taunton, followed by his great friend William Wordsworth. We examine Coleridge and Wordsworth's time in Somerset - a period when they created the Romantic Poetry movement and also succumbed to Laudanum addiction and professional rivalry.

250 years ago, a Somerset woman was murdered by her husband. He was investigated, found guilty, and executed. So why 50 years later was he being eulogised as a prime specimen of masculinity? And what does this have to do with the earthwork in the Quantocks known as "Dead Woman's Ditch"? Join me and my guest as we explore 18th century "fake news" and see what truth we can shake from it.

Join me and my guest, archeologist and folklore expert Dan Broadbent - and please don't have nightmares...

What kind of impact did the village church have on medieval life, and what kind of power did the church establishment wield over it? In today's episode, with the help of local historian Ray Stokes, we visit the church of St Mary in the village of Kingston St Mary, which celebrates its 800th birthday this year, to delve iinto the ins and outs of religious life through history.

My guest Becky Wright applied her enthusiasm for folklore and the mythology of Somerset to create an award winning gin in a small still in the Quantock Hills. From botanicals (the key flavourings) with hundredss of years of folk medicine history to the legend of the Dryads luring young men towards their oak trees, we will dive into the role that foklore plays in our experience of something as "everyday" as gin.

Was Alfred really that great? Well, apart from raising an army to defeat the Vikings, and using the Somerset Levels as a cunning hideout. Oh, and he did really burn some cakes. Explore all this and more with Phil's special guest, archeologist Dan Broadbent.