As it's nearly time for the Frome festival I thought I'd post this description which has appeared in the Times 'Best of Britain Bit... personally I preferred it in the old days. There are some interesting things going on at the festival though - blues harmonica workshop looks good, Andy Fairweather Low might be a good night out and of course the UK Stiffs and the Bad Detectives at the Griffin will be a guaranteed good time.FROME, Somerset
There are some people who spend a fortune seeking peace of mind on a psychiatrist’s couch, or who follow hairy gurus into the mountains in search of inner calm.
But some of us know that all you have to do is drive to Somerset and walk into the nearest greengrocer’s. “Hello, my loveleey! What can I do you for on this beautiful day?” Now that’s therapeutic.
Frome (it rhymes with broom, my lovely) is situated deep enough into the West Country to be sedated by the local languor but it’s not so far gone that you need a magic carpet to get there for the weekend. The town’s special character is, ironically, the product of what was once a geographical blight – throughout most of the 20th century, isolation and local industrial failures put Frome to sleep, but when it awoke, street upon beautiful street of terraced cottages were still standing, while in the neighbouring boom towns they’d been flattened.
Frome now has more listed buildings than any comparable town in the region, and all those lovely cottages have drawn in an army of artsy, folksy-lifestyle refugees, giving this minute metropolis a cultural life to rival somewhere thrice the size.
Three art galleries, two theatres, a concert venue, a crafts centre and a blossoming spiritual-therapy and alternative-health industry – no wonder some of the town’s more, erm, prosaic inhabitants look a little bemused by what’s happened here.
For a visitor, the chief pleasures are shop-pottering along Cheap Street and Catherine Street, visiting the Black Swan Arts centre (blackswan.org.uk; 10am-5pm) and the Saturday farmers’ market – and then heading out into the Mendip countryside. A spot to consider with kids, Frome is four miles from Longleat, stately home of lions and tigers, and a polyamorous marquess, (www.longleat.co.uk), and the nearby caves at Wookey Hole are a child-spooking favourite (www.wookey.co.uk). If you’d rather just stroll in some of the nicest country in the west, pick up walking route maps at the town’s tourist centre.
The tourist centre (in the Black Swan complex) has, they reckon, the best events-diary website in small-town Britain: www.frometouristinfo.co.uk.
Brian Schofield
