Mendiplodocus Daily — Issue #38 — Wednesday 5 August 2026
Issue #38 | Wednesday 5 August 2026
Good morning, Mendips! Wells gears up for a rainbow-bright Pride parade this Saturday, Frome's Cheese & Grain brings New Orleans brass and rock energy to the region this week, and there's a Hiroshima Day lantern float, abbey trails and a full calendar of family fun to get stuck into. Let's get into it.
📅 Featured Event — Wells Pride 2026 brings colour to the city centre
🔤 Uxbridge English Dictionary — today's entry
📰 Hot News - Mendips Style — Britannia Inn homes row · Wells police
August surgeries · Shepton's hidden women's history · Glastonbury drought fire row.
Mysterious Mendips - The Magic of Glastonbury
📆 What's On This Week — across the Mendips
🌡️ Weather — Wells BA5 forecast
Wells Pride returns to the city centre
Wells Pride returns to the city centre this Saturday, 8 August, for another year of colour, music and celebration. The day kicks off with brunch at The White Hart from 10am — a relaxed chance for people to meet before the main event gets underway.
The parade assembles on Cathedral Green at noon and sets off along Sadler Street at 12.15pm, heading down the High Street towards the bandstand on the Recreation Ground, where dancing, singing, speeches and entertainment continue through the afternoon.
Started in 2024, Wells Pride was created as an annual celebration of diversity and a platform for LGBTQ+ rights in the city — and it has grown a little bigger each year since.
Whether you join the parade route or head straight to the Recreation Ground, organisers are encouraging residents and visitors alike to come along and add to the colour. Keep an eye on the Wells Pride 2026 Facebook page for line-up updates nearer the day.
📰 Hot News - Mendips Style
🏚️ Wells Campaigners Vow To Fight On As Britannia Inn Homes Win Appeal
The East Wells Community Benefit Society, which raised close to £100,000 trying to buy and reopen the derelict Britannia Inn on Bath Road, has been dealt a blow after a planning inspector allowed an appeal for five new homes on the site. Somerset Council had refused the scheme, but the inspector ruled the housing benefits outweighed the pub's loss. The group says it is now weighing up its next move.
👮 Wells Police Bring Beat Surgeries To The Good Earth And Morrisons
Avon and Somerset Police's neighbourhood team is holding two drop-in beat surgeries in Wells this month — today, Wednesday 5 August, at The Good Earth (10-11am), and Wednesday 12 August at Morrisons. No appointment is needed; residents can raise concerns, ask for crime-prevention advice, or simply meet their local officers face to face.
Research by Shepton Mallet's volunteer-led Shepton Ladies project has been chosen by Ancestry for its new Missing Page campaign, spotlighting overlooked women from history. The work helped put local figures Annie Wainwright Hyatt and Louie Horwood among 25 women recognised nationally at a London launch. Shepton Mallet Town Council has now opened workshops for residents keen to research more local hidden figures.
English Lessons from the
Uxbridge English Dictionary
S
Satin
Something that happens to chairs.
Saxophones
A large bag full of telecommunication devices.
Scalpel
Found between Scalp K and Scalp M in the organised collection of Geronimo's effects.
Sea Lion
Something used to remove creases from seals.
Seeking
Ruler of the ocean.
Semantics
Very small blood sucking creatures particularly fond of sailors.
Diagon Alley or Glastonbury High Street:
Witch Came First?
Somewhere between the crystal shops and tarot readers of Glastonbury High Street, a visitor invariably has the same thought: this is Diagon Alley, but rea?. Fair enough — both places sell wands (Glastonbury's are mostly dowsing rods), and both seem to think any respectable high street needs a shop devoted to the fate of your immortal soul. But the polite answer to "witch came first?" is Glastonbury, by several centuries.
Long before a fictional train platform welcomed fictional wizards, Glastonbury was doing brisk trade in the numinous. Glastonbury Tor, as everyone knows, may be the mythical Isle of Avalon, resting place of King Arthur, and a gateway to the Celtic otherworld ruled by the fairy king Gwyn ap Nudd.
Star Child - Magical Herb Shop
Medieval monks claimed in 1191 to have unearthed Arthur and Guinevere's graves nearby, (which coincidentally did wonders for pilgramage tourism) and legend has Joseph of Arimathea arriving with the Holy Grail and planting his staff on Wearyall Hill, where it sprouted into the still-blooming Glastonbury Thorn.
Diagon Alley has Ollivanders, but Glastonbury has an actual hill rumoured for a thousand years to be a fairy portal. Advantage: Somerset.
But how did this become the New Age capital of Britain?
In the early 20th century, when a local railway closure hollowed out the town's traditional economy the mystics and artists arrived, drawn by the Arthurian legends and rents considerably cheaper than London's.
Occultist Dion Fortune, expelled from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1924, set up her own mystical society in a Glastonbury guest house. In 1959, a trust bought the gardens around a natural spring and made it the Chalice Well, still one of the town's best-loved sites.
Glastonbury’s “Ley Lines”
When the swinging 60s brought the Hippies and seekers of the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, many stayed for good. Archaeologist Alfred Watkins had proposed that ancient sites were linked by invisible "ley lines," and Glastonbury, sitting at the convergence of several, became a magnet for anyone who took the idea seriously.
T Rex - at the first Glastonbury Festival
By the time the Pilton Pop, Folk and Blues Festival (Glastonbury) launched in 1970, the die was cast. The alternative shops followed the alternative people, and today the town is said to host over 70 different spiritualities among roughly 10,000 residents. They say if you can't find the belief system you're after, someone will invent one for you. Christians, Pagans, Druids and Goddess-worshippers rub along together beneath the same unique and improbable hill.
The town's reputation for magic wasn't borrowed from fiction — if anything, fiction borrowed from Glastonbury.
All week (5-9 August)
Mythical Creatures Trail — Wells Cathedral. Family trail through the cathedral, included with admission, running daily to 1 September. More info
Harry Brockway: Ways With Wood Exhibition — Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury. Wood engravings, woodcuts and sculpture from the Glastonbury-based artist, Tue-Sun to 2 September. More info
Wookey Uncovered — Wookey Hole Caves. Guided tours of the caves and Victorian papermill all summer, through 30 September. More info
Summer Fun on the Farm — Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury. Drop-in summer activities, animals and crafts, through 4 September. More info
School Summer Holidays at The Bishop's Palace — Wells. Summer trails and activities in the gardens, running to 2 September. More info
Wednesday, 5 August
Guided Glastonbury Abbey Tree Walk with Matt Witt — 11am-12.30pm, Glastonbury Abbey. Guided walk around the Abbey's historic trees, included with admission. More info
Wild Wednesdays — 10am-3pm (short session 10am-12.30pm), Somerset Earth Science Centre, Stoke St Michael. Forest-school summer club for ages 5-10: den building, natural crafts and campfire cooking. Full day £25, short session £16. More info
Mini Beast Hunts — 2-4pm, Glastonbury Abbey. Drop-in bug hunts for families, Wednesday to Friday afternoons this week. More info
Thursday, 6 August
Hot 8 Brass Band — 7pm, Cheese & Grain, Frome. New Orleans brass band bring their live show to Frome. Tickets
Hiroshima Day Commemorative Lantern Float — gather 8.30pm, Bishop's Palace Moat, Wells. Marking 81 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — all welcome to join the lantern float after dusk.
Create a Wood Slice Painting — Glastonbury Abbey. Family craft session painting a wood slice, included with admission. More info
Stories, Myths & Magic! — 11am, Yeast Scrapstore, Glastonbury. Weekly storytelling and craft session for children with Rainbow Roots CIC, £10 per child.
Walk & Wine Thursday — 6pm, Wells Market Place. Weekly circular walk for women, finishing at Fosso Lounge for those who fancy a drink. More info
Badger Walks — 7-9pm, Glastonbury Abbey. Late-summer evening badger walks around the Abbey grounds. More info
Mini Beast Hunts — 2-4pm, Glastonbury Abbey (see Wednesday above for details).
Friday, 7 August
Birds of Prey — Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury. Up-close encounters with birds of prey courtesy of Pitcombe Rock Falconry, included with museum admission. More info
Bishop's Palace Summer Late Openings — 6-8pm (last entry 7.30pm), Bishop's Palace, Wells. Bring a picnic and enjoy the gardens after hours. Adult £8.75, child £4.40. More info
Beats 'n' Bites — 5.30-10pm, The Island outside the Town Hall, Midsomer Norton. Live music and community feasting — bring your own takeaway food and drink from local businesses. Free entry.
Mini Beast Hunts — 2-4pm, Glastonbury Abbey, wrapping up this week's run (see Wednesday above for details).
Saturday, 8 August
A Hans Zimmer Candlelight Experience — 7pm & 9pm sittings, St John the Baptist's Church, Glastonbury. Candlelit tribute concert performing Hans Zimmer's best-loved film scores on strings. Tickets
Wells Pride 2026 — from 10am (brunch), parade sets off Sadler Street 12.15pm. See Featured Event above for the full write-up.
Ratrace + One Chord Wonders — 7pm, Cheese & Grain, Frome. Live music night. Tickets
Hiroshima Exhibition — 12-4pm, Wells Cathedral Green. Exhibition marking Hiroshima Day and promoting peace and remembrance. Free.
Marvellous Mosaics — Avalon Archaeology, Glastonbury. Family session discovering Roman mosaics. More info
3SEVEN6 x Forged Records: Day 'N' Night — 2pm-midnight across two central Glastonbury venues. Ten hours of underground dance music, tickets from £10. Tickets
Sunday, 9 August
Summer Sundays at Wells & Mendip Museum — 10am-4pm, 8 Cathedral Green, Wells. Discover the story of Wells over the school holidays; adult £6, family ticket £12. More info
The Americana & Country Experience — The King Arthur, Glastonbury. Tribute show covering the Allman Brothers, Eagles, Chris Stapleton and more, with support from local band September Son. More info
🗓️ Coming Up
Quiz Night at the Waldegrave Arms — East Harptree. Tuesday 11 August, 7pm, £1 entry, max 6 per team.
Secret Supper Club at The Bishop's Table — Wells. Thursday 13 August.
History Alive: King Arthur and the Holy Fail — Bishop's Palace, Wells. Thursday 13 August.
The Jam'd Live at Studio 24 — Wells. Saturday 15 August.
Glastonbury Repair Cafe — Scout Hut, Benedict Street, Glastonbury. Saturday 15 August, 10am-12noon.
Night at the Abbey 2026 — Glastonbury Abbey. Saturday 12 September. Outdoor concert headlined by Sophie Ellis-Bextor with Inspiral Carpets, Hot Chip and Orbital — tickets selling fast.
🎬 This Week at Wells Film Centre
Spider-Man: Brand New Day [cert TBC] — continuing this week
Special screening: André Rieu's 2026 Summer Concert – Viva Maastricht! [12A] — Saturday 8 August 7pm and Sunday 9 August 2.30pm
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🌡️ Wells BA5 Weather — Week of 5 August 2026
It's a dry and increasingly warm week ahead for Wells and the Mendips. Wednesday and Thursday stay breezy with highs around 21°C, before things calm down for a warmer Friday and a top temperature near 25°C on Saturday — the pick of the week for Wells Pride and the Bishop's Palace late opening. Sunday stays warm before a cooling, slightly showery trend moves in from the middle of next week.
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Paul Branston, Editor
Hi, I'm Paul Branston and I publish the Mendiplodocus every morning, Monday to Saturday. Each issue goes out to a growing base of thousands of local residents who want to keep up to date with events and local news. If you have events or news to share or you have a local business to promote, please get in touch.
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