SOMERSET NEWS: Last chance to vote for your Somerset Day favourite date!

VOTING closes tonight (Saturday, January 31, 2015) at midnight to find out which date in the calendar will be celebrated in the future as Somerset Day.

There is expected to be a ferocious fight to the finish between two of the three contenders for the Somerset Day crown.

The Battle of Sedgemoor with 50% of the vote, and Alfred the Great with 45%, are well clear of St Dunstan 5% for the grand prize of being the theme for the annual Somerset Day.

PHOTO - RIGHT: The Battle of Sedgemoor was the last battle to be fought on English soil back in 1685.

Currently Somerset's 900,000 residents are voting in the 'Passion for Somerset' event.

The dates are May 11 when Alfred the Great "gathered" all the people of Somerset; May 19 commemorating St Dunstan who was born in Somerset and was England’s most popular Saint; and July 6 when the Battle of Sedgemoor was fought in 1685, the last battle fought on English soil.

At the moment it is July 6 which leads the way from May 11 in a close second and May 19 trailing a long way back in third.

The Battle of Sedgemoor, on the outskirts of Bridgwater, was followed by one of the most infamous episodes in English history when Judge Jeffreys presided over what became known as the Bloody Assizes in 1685 which touched Taunton and Wells.

Eight hundred years before the Battle of Sedgemoor in 878 Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, gathered “all the people of Somerset” to march against and defeat the invading Danish Army. By the time of his death he had become the dominant ruler in England and is the only English monarch to be given the title “The Great.”

St Dunstan, meanwhile, was born in Somerset around 910 and was for a long period the most popular saint in Englan. After being the Abbot of Glastonbury, he became the Bishop of Worcester, then London, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury. His work restored monastic life in England and reformed the English Church.

THE KEY DATES:

May 11 – King Alfred the Great.

May 19 – St Dunstan.

July 6 – Battle of Sedgemoor.

Somerset Day is organised by Passion for Somerset – an organisation formed by business in the county to represent businesses and the people who work for them from Bath and Wincanton in the east, to Minehead in the west, Yeovil in the south and Portishead in the north.

Somerset Day will be promoted as a day to celebrate all that is great about the wonderful county.

For more information and to vote see www.passionforsomerset.co.uk . People have until midnight on Saturday (January 31, 2015) to cast their vote.

PHOTO - ABOVE LEFT: Alfred the Great. PHOTO - ABOVE RIGHT: St Dunstan.

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