Who’s who in the Somerset celebrity set?
The motto for the county of Somerset is “Sumorsǣte ealle”. An Old English phrase, it translates to, “all the people of Somerset”, and refers to the support that locals gave to King Alfred in his struggle against Viking invaders in the 8th century.
At that time, natives of the county successfully defended their territory against wealth-plundering newcomers from the East. More than a millennium on, though, Somerset is under assault again. And this time, locals can’t do anything about it.
Whether fashion designer, media mogul, acting royalty or tech entrepreneur – if you have money, power, influence and – ideally – a slight bohemian side, it is not the eastern Cotswolds counties of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire you look to conquer from London in 2020, but the genteel land of milk and cider a little further west.
Some may have fallen for Somerset on a weekend visit to Glastonbury Festival or Babington House, the private members club and hotel in a manor house near Frome, owned by Nick Jones’s Soho House group. Since 1999, the latter has hosted weddings for Fatboy Slim and Zoe Ball, Eddie Redmayne, Amanda Holden, James Corden, Millie Mackintosh and countless, even less famous, others.
Perhaps they heard about it when British Vogue called the medieval Somerset town of Bruton, “the new Notting Hill.” George Osborne, the the former chancellor and editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard, who has sold his Notting Hill townhouse and bought in, yes, Bruton.
Or maybe they knew it already, or saw it on a map, or had a normal recommendation like the rest of us. Either way, the Somerset Set is growing mightier by the week, and Sumorsǣte ealle are powerless to stop them. Before they steal the Cotswolds’ crown, it is time to get to know them.
Media Moguls
Chipping Norton may have Rebekah Brooks and Jeremy Clarkson to call on if the parish council newsletter is getting tired, but Somerset holds its own. Osborne’s bought a £1.6m, Grade II-listed Georgian pile in Bruton, while the South African internet mogul Koos Bekker and his wife, Karen Roos, a former editor of Elle Decoration in South Africa. They will be turning their £12m home into a £475-a-night country hotel and spa. For more lobbying power and money, Ben Goldsmith’s farm is nearby, too.
And then there’s Lynne Franks. ‘Ab Fab inspiration Lynne Franks reveals plans for former gay bar in Wincanton’ is the sort of headline that could cause even the most metropolitan of Somerset Live readers drop their marmalade, but the russet-haired PR guru’s plans turned out to be a café, wellness retreat spot and “holistic healing destination” on the high street.
The In-crowd
If Osborne ever felt like switching up the trusty ‘navy suit for weekdays, navy sweater for weekends’ vibe, he could simply call on any number of fashion designer neighbours. Stella McCartney has a farm in a valley near Bruton, while Phoebe Philo and jeweller Solange Azagury-Partridge.
So does the Duchess of Cambridge’s favourite designer, Alice Temperley. Given she was born in the county, grew up on a cider farm, and launched a collection called ‘Somerset’, though, she’s probably safe if there’s a local uprising against the “grockles”. But would that line-up of designers have enough to match Oxfordshire’s Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham? There’s only one way to find out. Fiiiight.
My Luvvies
It isn’t really fair to compare Cornbury Festival, the family-friendly affair in Chipping Norton that Blur’s Alex James organises and Mark Carney attends in his polo shirt, with Emily Eavis’s Glastonbury, but otherwise the two regions square up fairly evenly in the arts.
Where the Cotswolds can boast Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant and Jamie Dornan, Somerset could respond with Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Sir Don McCullin, Sir Cameron Mackintosh and the Americans, rumoured Bath resident Johnny Depp and Nicolas Cage, who once bought the 18th-century Midford Castle.
“I just found Somerset irresistible,” Cage once said. “I love the forests of magnificent trees and those beautiful rolling hills. I have been to Weston-super-Mare – what a great name… When I am here, I like to become as English as possible, I go and buy jams and cheeses from the farmers markets, and I have grown to love bangers and mash and, of course, fish and chips.”
Nowhere does the Notting Hill-Somerset pathway look clearer than in the arts. Rhys Ifans, star of the actual film Notting Hill, lives in Bruton. Gabriella Zanna Vanessa Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, better known as Poldark actress Gabriella Wilde, was also a resident of the north-west London enclave before settling in Somerset.
The Foodies
It stands to reason that when a fashionable celebrity country scene erupts, a fashionable celebrity food scene will follow. It happened in Cornwall, when Gordon Ramsay and David Cameron moved in; it happened in Norfolk, the last county to be declared ‘The new Cotswolds’ when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge led a posh parade to East Anglia, with Galston Blackiston’s Michelin-starred Morston Hall; and it certainly happened in the Cotswolds, where you can barely move for an aggressively cutesy country pub dripping in accolades.
In Somerset, the food scene has a wizard in Merlin Labron-Johnson. At 24, he became the youngest chef to win a Michelin star in 2015, and now prepares to reopen Osip, a “tiny farm-to-table restaurant” in Bruton, where he was advised to relocate because his financial adviser suggested it. Ingredients will include some foraged from neighbours’ gardens in exchange for free meals. Otherwise it’s £65 per head.
The other gastronomic talking point is the farm, vineyard and hotel owned by Iwan Wirth and Manuela Hauser, founders of global art gallery network Hauser & Worth, who moved to Somerset 13 years ago after selling their place on the edge of Holland Park (next to Notting Hill, it should be noted) to the Beckhams for £30m. Their Bruton gallery’s restaurant, Roth Bar & Grill, serves £12 chicken sandwiches, £15 Miso roast carrots, and £7 bowls of granola. Like everywhere in Bruton, it is consistently packed. And on the up.
