Issue #32 | Tuesday 28 July 2026

Good morning, Mendips! Glastonbury's Great Temple opens its doors today as the 31st Goddess Conference begins its six-day run in the town, Wells gears up for its Beer Festival this weekend, and a much-loved Queen Street toy shop says a fond farewell. Plenty more to get out and enjoy across the hills this week too — read on for the full rundown.

📸 Glastonbury Goddess Conference - Today's featured event

The true legend of Cannard’s Grave - Shepton

📅 What's On This Week — across the Mendips

🧸 Wells Toy Shop Closure Sparks Community Tributes

🏛️ Glastonbury Market Cross Repairs Await Next Step

🍺 Landmark Pennard Pub The Lion Goes Up For Rent

🥐 New Cornish Bakery Set To Open In Historic Wells Building

🌡️ Weather — Wells BA5 forecast

The 31st Glastonbury Goddess Conference opens its Great Temple doors today, Tuesday 28 July, for an 'Open Temple Day' of music, elemental blessings and the lighting of the Goddess Conference flame. Fringe events have been running since Sunday, and the main six-day programme continues right through to Sunday 2 August, filling Glastonbury Town Hall and venues across Avalon with talks, workshops, ceremonies and performances.

This year's theme is the 'Mother Year' — the third in a five-year cycle exploring how the Divine Feminine manifests through creativity. Now in its 31st year, the conference draws visitors from around the world to Glastonbury, with international speakers, artists and performers gathering to honour the Earth Goddess of Creation.

Highlights across the week include Tuesday's ticketed evening of 'Prayer-formances', the Wellness Sanctuary's programme of healing sessions, and Saturday's Masked Gala. Day tickets, weekend passes and fringe-only options are all still available for anyone fancying a dip into Avalon's biggest annual gathering.

→ Full programme at goddessconference.com

If you've ever driven the A37 just south of Shepton Mallet and passed a junction called Cannard's Grave, you might reasonably assume it's named after someone rather dull — a Victorian landowner, perhaps, or a forgotten local dignitary. You would be delightfully wrong. Cannard's Grave is named after a crooked innkeeper, a stolen inheritance, an angry mob, and — depending on who you ask — a stake through the heart.

Our story's antihero is one Giles Cannard, also known (because apparently one alias wasn't dramatic enough) as Tom Kennard, or simply "Tom the Taverner." In the late 17th century, Cannard ran an inn on the site of what's now the Cannards Grave Inn, and he ran it the way a fox might run a henhouse: with great enthusiasm and questionable ethics. Sheep-stealing, highway robbery, and fleecing his own guests were all apparently part of the standard service, alongside bed and breakfast.

Cannard's real downfall, though, wasn't petty theft — it was greed on a grander scale. He got his hands on a document that, he claimed, entitled him to a chunk of valuable common land and the riches that came with it.

Unfortunately for Cannard, the merchants of nearby Frome and Shepton Mallet were not in a mood to be swindled out of their shared land by a dodgy innkeeper with a suspiciously convenient piece of paperwork. They formed a mob and set off after him, and this being the 17th century, "set off after him" meant business.

What happened next depends entirely on which version of the story you prefer. The tidier account says Cannard was caught, tried, and became the last person in the area to be publicly hanged from a gibbet outside his own inn — presumably to the great inconvenience of anyone hoping for a quiet pint. The more theatrical version has him so terrified of the approaching mob that he took matters into his own hands and hanged himself before they arrived, sparing the crowd the trouble.

Either way, dead is dead, but Cannard's story wasn't finished. Local legend insists that a gravedigger, taking no chances with a man of his reputation, buried Cannard at the crossroads with a stake through his heart — the traditional method for making sure a restless soul stays exactly where it's put.

It clearly didn't work brilliantly, because reports of Cannard's ghost lingering around the site have persisted for centuries, including an account from a 19th-century Rector of Shepton Mallet who wrote that "the soul could not rest and frequently visits the scene of its former abode while in the flesh."

The inn itself is long gone, but Cannard's name lives on every time someone types the junction into their satnav, blissfully unaware they're driving past the final (double-buried) resting place of one of the Mendips' most colourfully dishonest publicans.

→ Full listings and booking at Wells Film Centre

Kids Stuff Wells Toy Shop on Queen Street is set to close as its owners retire, prompting a flood of tributes from families who've grown up visiting for Lego, Playmobil and Hot Wheels. Customers have been sharing memories online, with one describing the shop as 'part of the fabric of Wells'. No final trading date has yet been confirmed.

Read full story → (Wells Nub News)

Scaffolding will remain around Glastonbury's historic Market Cross while repair plans are finalised, the town council has confirmed. A structural engineer has completed a detailed inspection of the Grade II listed landmark, with findings now passed to a specialist stonemason and Somerset Council's conservation officer.

Read full story → (Glastonbury Nub News)

Cornish Bakery will open its doors at 1 Market Place, Wells, on 4 August, inside the Grade II listed former HSBC bank building. The design-led fit-out keeps the original arched windows and old banking vault, pairing them with an industrial-chic working bakery that's created more than 16 year-round jobs.

Read full story → (Somerset Leveller)

🌡️ Wells BA5 Weather — Week of 28 July 2026

It stays warm and mostly dry across the Mendips this week, with Wednesday shaping up as the hottest day as temperatures push into the high twenties. Expect plenty of sunshine through Thursday before things turn a touch cooler and cloudier heading into the Wells Beer Festival weekend, with a small chance of a passing shower.

→ Full 7-day forecast on BBC Weather

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