Somerset Yarning

SOMERSET YARNING (2025) 20minutes

Originally created for the 2024 exhibition Spinning a Yarn at the Somerset Rural Life Museum, Somerset Yarning has been newly recut and reimagined for wider audiences. The film will tour cinemas, festivals, and community venues across Somerset and the South West throughout 2025. Organised by Somerset Art Works, the tour began at Fernhill Farm in March 2025 and will visit locations across the region, including places where the film was originally shot.

Somerset Yarning is a quiet, meditative portrait of rural life and skilled craftsmanship in Somerset and immerses audiences in the sensory world of sheep farming and fleece preparation, telling stories of tradition, care, and connection to the land

Opening at daybreak in the Mendip Hills and closing at dusk in the Quantocks, Somerset Yarning traces a poetic journey as fleeces are carded, spun, felted, and woven by Somerset artists. Through intimate interviews and lyrical visual storytelling, Trevor Pitt brings to life the personal narratives of regenerative sheep farmers Andy Wear and Jen Hunter, alongside artists Liz Clay, who crafts couture felt from Fernhill fleeces, and Bec Briar, who spins and weaves on her smallholding near Wiveliscombe. The film is further enriched by the poignant voice of the late Janet White, a 94-year-old sheep farmer whose reflections add a deeply moving layer to the story.

With striking videography by Hannah Earl, an original score by Michael Tanner and Alison Cotton, and beautifully detailed sound design by Neil Hillman, Somerset Yarning offers a richly atmospheric experience — inviting you to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with the rhythms of the land.

Somerset Yarning is part of ongoing Yarning projects, a 15-year exploration of people, landscape, craft, and identity through film, art, performance, and storytelling. These projects explore our connections to the countryside, the lifeforms we share it with, and the heritage that continues to shape our relationship with the land.

Commissioned by Somerset Art Works and the South West Heritage Trust. Bottom of Form