Bakewell House
Bakewell House is in the village of Alhampton, which lies between Castle Cary and Shepton Mallet, on the edge of the Somerset Levels and in the shadow of the Mendip Hills.
Not much happens in Alhampton. There are no real amenities apart from the Alhampton Inn, home of one of the UK's most "intimate" (i.e. smallest) rock festivals, Alfest. (If you are a music fan, you can just about hear the Glastonbury Festival across the fields...it's only a few miles away). Just up the road is the village of Ditcheat where there is a beautiful mediaeval church (the village belonged to the monks of Glastonbury before the reformation) and also the training establishment of Paul Nicholls, the champion National Hunt Trainer who saddled Kauto Star to victory in the 2007 Cheltenham Gold Cup, and got a 1-2-3 in the 2008 one. The Manor House Inn in Ditcheat ran out of champagne on both occasions...
Navigation is not all that straightforward in our part of the world. Within about 20 miles we have Alhampton and Galhampton; Coleford and Cloford; Mells and Wells; Shepton Mallet and Shepton Montague; Batcombe and Butcombe (and Eastcombe and Westcombe); Charlton Adam, Charlton Mackrell and Charlton Musgrove (and just plain Charlton); and many more. Plus a lot of villages with crazy (or delightful) names: Hornblotton, Wyke Champflower, Fifehead Magdalen, Binegar, Vobster and many more in a similar vein. But that's Somerset for you!
Our local town, Castle Cary, is delightful, one of the last in the area NOT to have the usual Supermarket/DIY store/McDonalds cluster on the edge of town and therefore still in possession of a real High Street with real shops...a really good independent bookshop, several nice clothes shops, a cracking old-fashioned ironmonger who sells eveything imaginable, and several good food shops: butcher, baker, deli and so on. Worth a detour if you like personal service and a pleasant few hours browsing.
Other nearby towns are Frome, Wincanton and Wells, although Wells is really a city...and a lovely one at that. England's smallest, with a glorious cathedral and a truly unspoiled environment. Worth a day in itself, and don't miss the open-air market on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
If you want real cities, Bath and Bristol are both about 20 miles to the North. Round us, people know they exist but don't really understand why you'd ever want to go there...