Why Wincanton is the new Bruton

Who wants to go to Bruton? There's nothing there.

That was the adolescent view, mine included, and it was wrong. I wrote about how wrong it was two years ago, when there was a good deal of excitement about Notting Hill-on-the-Brue.

Now there is a new one. Camden-on-the-Cale, if we are keeping the theme, and this article should be taken with a pinch or a large heap of salt.

An introduction to Wincanton

Wincanton has a rich history and most of it is under-discussed. The market, the cheese-making, Cow and Gate, and a nightlife that anyone local will tell you about at length, given the chance. The Pegasus, with its multi-coloured sofas and its sticky dancefloor, is gone and is sorely missed.

It is also my home town, which I should declare. I have always tried to see past the run-down stretch of the high street, and I have thought for a long time that the place has waited long enough for its turn.

What was starting to shift

A bakery and cafe had opened in town, the sort of modern, quaint space my partner insists on calling a bakafe, doing proper breakfasts and a lunch menu to match. One good independent of that kind changes the reason people stop, and the businesses either side of it feel the difference first.

Wincanton also acquired a genuine local celebrity in Lynne Franks, who I can confirm is real because I saw her in the High Street. For those who have not come across her, Lynne Franks initiated London Fashion Week and the British Fashion Awards, positioned the UK as a world fashion leader, and is widely thought to be one of the inspirations behind Absolutely Fabulous.

Bruton counters with sightings of Kevin McCloud, Stella McCartney and Fearne Cotton, so perhaps this is a stalemate.

The serious bit

I am not claiming Wincanton is overtaking Bruton. It plainly was not, and growth of that kind takes a decade rather than a season.

What I am claiming is that our local towns benefit from each other, and that the reflex to keep visitors out is a mistake. We should take every piece of tourism this country and others will give us. The towns that isolate themselves do not stay quaint. They just get quieter.

Remember the tortoise and the hare, and where that particular story ends up.

If you want to know what is actually happening in the town now, the Wincanton community page is where it gets discussed.

First published in September 2017. Edited since: the photographs and their credits have gone; a rumour about a new venture that I could not verify has been removed, as have the podcast plug and the enquiry link that closed the original; and several present-tense claims about individual businesses now read as what they were at the time, because I cannot vouch for what is open today.