27/09/2026
Flagship Crewkerne set sail on her maiden voyage across the town at our launch night on Friday, this is a join project between Open Doors Somerset and Creative Crewkerne.
All Participants, groups and artists and the community gathered to celebrate the flagship display.
A big thank you to all and those who supported and spoke, Jon Godwin Creative Crewkerne, Crewkerne Mayor Alice Samuel, David Craner, our Town Crier and local Trombonist Kent.
Thanks to David Greening for light installation, commissioned for the project.
Local Poet and writer Puck performed the following poem, commissioned by the Flagship project:
Love Letter to Lady Crewkerne
A thousand years and more
You’ve played the patient patron:
Watching, waiting, welcoming
Along the London Road
Travellers from Exeter
Towards the capital’s distant din,
Your storehouse ‘aern’
Nestled beneath Bincombe’s cruc.
Here, Henry’s Spanish Catherine,
Once laid her head
Upon the stuffed mattress
Of one Richard Surland’s bed.
But Lady, you are more
than a mere passing place:
You mothered proud West Country men,
Methodist and rebellious to the core,
Who marched with Monmouth
from the south.
He’d stopped and rested here a while
Before his last and bloody push
To Sedgemoor’s killing ground.
You bowed your head when
Those ten brave Crewkerne men
In Market Square gave up their lives,
Drawn and quartered
To sate Judge Jeffrey’s’ appetite.
Patriot you were and are,
Honest as the Somer day is long,
Labouring and liberal:
In later years you hoisted sails
Of flax, farmed out in fields by Drayton,
And worked at Viney Bridge:
Toiled, twisted and spun the yarn,
That clothed a navy and
the fuselage of biplane.
My dear Lady Crewkerne,
Here you are still.
The nation’s poet, Betjeman,
Once noted your mature, matronly charm,
Your north-east-south-and-west embrace
Your arms open wide
To gather all to Market Street
Over which fine Bartholomew attends.
Your tale, and ours, coils on,
The journey far from done:
So we hoist sail to the future,
The winds of hope and optimism blowing fair.
There’s a far horizon still to reach
And our flagship
Charts the passage through times
By turn turbulent and kind,
Storm-wracked and mild.
With you, Lady Crewkerne, at the helm,
We’ll raise new flags:
Vibrant, generous, full-voiced flags,
To steer a true and steady course.
