The annual Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival in Somerset is the place to be for galanthophiles this month
WORDS LUCY BELLAMY PHOTOGRAPHS JASON INGRAM
Each October, volunteers in the market town of Shepton Mallet in Somerset plant thousands of snowdrop bulbs on roadsides, roundabouts, in schools and in other public places. In February, the opening of those flowers coincides with the Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival, which takes over the market town.
The festival draws an international crowd of snowdrop devotees and many dress up for the occasion. Chalkboard signs, beautifully illustrated with snowdrops, draw visitors through the streets and direct them to the various venues that host the event. Garden designer Dan Pearson is patron, and there are snowdrop-related tours, talks, activities and competitions, as well as open gardens, including nearby Yeo Valley Organic Garden, featuring swathes of white flowers. In the hall of a local junior school, an assembly of specialist snowdrop nurseries offer a wealth of plants for sale, growing in pots and in the green. Alongside well-established favourites are bunches of, as yet, unnamed snowdrops, appealingly wrapped in brown paper, for those gardeners willing to take a chance on finding the next big (small) thing. On the high street, every shop front, from the café serving organic food to the hair salon and hardware shop, has a glorious, snowdrop-themed window display.
Shepton Mallet is a former cloth- and wool-milling town that, until recently, was most famed as the site of England’s oldest prison. After going AWOL from National Service, the n
