Good morning, Mendips! We're kicking off the week with a proper ghost story — a Cavalier who's been haunting a Wells High Street staircase for 350 years — plus a look ahead to a jazz-filled weekend on the horizon, £300k of new funding for local waterways, and a very big Christmas tree already on its way to Glastonbury. Here's everything for Monday 21 September.
📅 What Shall We Do This Week? — our look ahead to the week's best bits
📰 Hot News - Mendips Style — £300k for Mendip waterways · McDonald's signage row in Shepton Mallet · Glastonbury's 30ft Christmas tree · Bad Apples filmed at Showerings
🔤 Uxbridge English Dictionary — today's entry
The Cavalier on the High Street
📆 What's On This Week — across the Mendips
🌡️ Weather — Wells BA5 forecast
What Shall We Do This Week?
The week opens quietly but builds towards something special — Wells' very first Jazz and Blues Festival takes over the town centre by Friday, and there's a proper spread of things to do before then for walkers, theatre-goers, music fans and anyone after a cheap night out.
Tuesday is an unexpectedly good night for culture. Over at Strode Theatre, NT Live: The Misanthrope beams in Molière's classic comedy of manners direct from the National Theatre stage, with Sandra Oh — best known to most as the scene-stealing Killing Eve and Grey's Anatomy star — leading the cast, a rare chance to catch top-tier London theatre without the trip.
If your taste runs more homespun, Crook Peak Music Festival brings its recorder ensemble Toot Suite to St Gregory's Church in Weare the same evening — an unashamedly old-fashioned bill built entirely around recorder music, with a complimentary drink thrown in, and exactly the sort of quietly charming, cash-on-the-door evening the festival has become known for locally.
Wednesday belongs to the am-dram crowd, with Valley Arts' Adult Performance Company meeting at Chew Magna Baptist Hall as part of its 10th Fringe Festival — a free, welcoming weekly group for anyone who fancies having a go at performing rather than just watching, no experience required.
Thursday offers something gentler: Walk & Wine Thursday gathers at Wells Market Place for a sociable circular walk finishing with an optional drink at Fosso Lounge — a lovely low-key way to meet people locally, free to join and no need to know anyone beforehand.
Then Friday arrives and the pace changes entirely. The Wells Jazz and Blues Festival 2026 launches across the Rose & Crown, the Swan Hotel, the City Arms and more, turning central Wells into one big free-to-wander music trail for the whole weekend. https://wellsjazzandblues.com/
Jazz & blues this week in Wells
If bigger names are more your thing, The Amazons — the Reading indie-rock outfit who've spent the last decade filling arenas and festival main stages — play Cheese & Grain in Frome the same night, while back in Wedmore the Bluebird Cafe & Bar runs a free-entry Music Bingo night that's become a firm favourite for anyone after a cheap, cheerful evening out.
And don't forget the weekend just beyond — This Ain't Texas rolls into the Bath & West Showground and Wells Cathedral hosts its Cider & Cheese Festival on Saturday, both well worth planning around.
Get out there and make the most of it — times, venues and the full day-by-day list are all in the What's On This Week section below.
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💧 Somerset Steps In With £300k To Save Mendip Waterways
Somerset Council has committed £300,000 to keep 18 stretches of local waterways clear after the Environment Agency scaled back its own maintenance following budget cuts. The work, prompted by early-2026 flooding, covers rhynes and drains around Glastonbury and the wider Mendip catchment, including sites near Cheddar and Wookey. There's no guarantee every stretch will be finished within budget, but it's a rare bit of good news for rivers that badly need the attention.
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🍔 Shepton Mallet's New McDonald's Drive-Thru Sparks Signage Row
An AI impression of how the new site could look - Somerset Leveller
Plans have gone in for a 4.5-metre illuminated totem sign and building signage at the proposed McDonald's drive-thru on Haskins Retail Park in Shepton Mallet. Shepton Mallet Town Council has objected to round-the-clock opening hours, while the retail park's owners and Shepton Mallet Prison have backed the scheme for the jobs and brownfield redevelopment it would bring. Somerset Council is now weighing up the applications.
🎄 Glastonbury Secures One Of The Last Big Christmas Trees In Britain
Glastonbury Town Council has managed to bag a 30-foot Christmas tree for this year's celebrations, hand-picked from a local supplier back in July. It'll go up in Market Square, with the lights switching on at the Frost Fayre on Saturday 28 November. The council says trees this size take around 25 years to grow and are getting harder to find, so residents are already being asked for their views on future years.
🎬 Showerings Cider Mill Gets Its Close-Up In New Film Bad Apples
Shepton Mallet's Showerings Cider Mill has landed a starring role as a filming location in Bad Apples, a new film hitting cinemas this week. It's a fun bit of local pride for the town, whose cider-making history stretches back generations. Keep an eye out for familiar Mendip scenery on the big screen.
English Lessons from the
Uxbridge English Dictionary
P
PayPal
The Vatican system of donating online.
Pepperami
What Sergeant Pepper served in.
Permit
A glove made of cat fur.
Perspire
How a steeplejack charges.
Pesto
Insecticide gravy browning.
Petulance
A vehicle that takes dogs and cats to hospital.
The Cavalier Who Never Checked Out
Next time you're shopping on Wells High Street, spare a thought for Charlie. He's been dead for roughly 350 years and he's still not left the building.
The former Bronwyn’s Baby shop (sadly now closed) at 8 High Street is a genuinely ancient survivor — a Grade II* listed building dating to the 15th century, one of a run of medieval properties along this stretch of the High Street. For most of the 20th century it traded as King Charles Parlour, a pub with a Jacobean staircase and a passageway round the back leading through to a second entrance, glimpsed from the courtyard behind the White Hart on Sadler Street.
Wine and spirit merchants worked out of the same building for decades — Rayben Dickinson in 1901, James Tate & Son through the 1910s, Charles Edwards Ltd from 1939 — while the King Charles Parlour name itself was already in use as far back as 1840.
By the 1970s, the pub had a permanent extra resident. Mary Ham, the manageress at the time, told the Wells Journal in 1978 that she'd repeatedly seen the ghost of a Cavalier on the stairs. When she finally worked up the nerve to mention it to the cellar man, a fixture of the place for years, he barely looked up: "Oh yes, he's always on the stairs."
Locals had already given the ghost a name — Charlie, said to wear a permanent grin and never cause any real bother. That reputation for good behaviour took a knock when the Hansom family took over in July 1977. Mr Hansom, living there alone before his wife and sons joined him, reported hearing a harpsichord playing from nowhere in particular, and once felt something brush past him on the stairs. Things escalated when two-year-old Michael arrived: he took to pointing at the staircase, screaming, and shouting "Man there" — enough to unsettle even a family used to living with a friendly local legend.
Then the BBC turned up. A television crew attempting to film inside the pub found all their lighting equipment blow out at once, and a press photographer's flash-gun simply refused to fire — an incident solemn enough to earn its own entry in the Paranormal Database, filed under "Cavalier, Wells," 1977/1978.
The pub is long gone, but Charlie hasn't been forgotten — he's now a fixture on Wells's audio ghost walk, still haunting the High Street he never really left.
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All week (21–25 September)
Wookey Uncovered — Wookey Hole Caves, Wookey. Family heritage tours of the caves and Victorian papermill, running right through to 30 September. More info
Tom Winter — The Bishop's Palace, Wells. New art exhibition, on display any day through 21 November. More info
The Songwriting Life – 6-Week Course — Abbey House, Glastonbury Abbey. Patrick Duff-led songwriting course, 10am-1pm, running through 14 October. More info
Monday, 21 September
A quieter day on the Mendips calendar — nothing new logged specifically for Monday, but see the All-week listings above for things running throughout.
Tuesday, 22 September
400 Years of Llewellyn's Almshouses – Exhibition — Wells, 11am-4pm. Exhibition marking the almshouses' 400th anniversary. More info
NT Live: The Misanthrope — Strode Theatre, Street, 7pm. Sandra Oh stars in this screened National Theatre production. More info
Crook Peak Music Festival: Recorder Ensemble — Toot Suite — 6-7pm, St Gregory's Church, Weare. Local recorder group performance with a complimentary drink included. £10 on the door.
Wednesday, 23 September
Adult Performance Company — Chew Magna Baptist Hall, 7:30pm. Weekly adult theatre group, part of Valley Arts' 10th Fringe Festival, free but booking required. More info
Thursday, 24 September
Walk & Wine Thursday — meet at Wells Market Place, 6-7pm. Weekly women's circular walk finishing with a drink at Fosso Lounge. Free. More info
True Foxes – Live at The Tree House — Cheese & Grain, Frome, 7pm. Touring band gig. More info
Spa Weekend and Lilith — Strode Theatre, Street. Film screening and one-woman storytelling show. Spa Weekend / Lilith
Friday, 25 September
Wells Jazz and Blues Festival 2026 — central Wells (Rose & Crown, Swan Hotel, City Arms and more). Kicks off today and runs through Sunday. More info
The Spies live at The City Arms, Wells, 8:30pm. More info
The Buzzing Fridges — The Kings Head, Wells, 9pm. More info
The Amazons — Cheese & Grain, Frome, 7pm. Touring band gig. More info
Comedy Cavern — Wookey Hole, doors 7:30pm. 18+ stand-up night. More info
Wells Golf Club Quiz Night — 7pm for 7:30pm. £3pp + optional £12 meal. More info
Tony and Bitter Christmas — Strode Theatre, Street. Tony / Bitter Christmas
MADband — Wells Little Theatre, 7-11pm. One-night-only charity gig. More info
Music Bingo — Bluebird Cafe & Bar, Wedmore, 8:30pm. Free entry. More info
🗓️ Coming Up
This Ain't Texas — Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet. Saturday 26 September.
Wells Cathedral Cider & Cheese Festival — Wells Cathedral. Saturday 26 September.
Through The Ages — Glastonbury Abbey. Saturday 26–Sunday 27 September.
Shepton Mallet Sunday Market — Sunday 27 September.
Crook Peak Music Festival: Solo Percussion — Harriet Riley — St Mary's, Wedmore. Tuesday 29 September.
Wells Food Festival — Wells. Sunday 11 October.
🎬 This Week at Wells Film Centre
Pressure [12A]
Practical Magic 2 [12A]
Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom [U]
🌡️ Wells BA5 Weather — Week of Monday 21 September
It's a settled, pleasant start to the week with plenty of sunshine and highs around 21°C on Monday and Tuesday. A damper, cooler mid-week arrives on Wednesday with a morning shower and highs dipping to 19°C, before Thursday brightens up again and Friday finishes cloudy but dry. A jacket's a good shout for evening events, but rain gear should mostly stay in the bag.
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