Civic imaginaries of Frome

Between November 2025 and March 2026, the Civic Imaginary Partnerships team will be living and working in Frome. In this blog, the first of our Place-Study profiles, we outline some of the features that have shaped Frome’s contemporary civic identities and why the town is of interest to us.

Located in Somerset in the southwest of England, the rural market town of Frome (pronounced ‘Froom’ to rhyme with ‘broom’), sits thirteen miles to the south of Bath. Popular with walkers, the Mendip Hills roll on its western side and the river Frome wends its way through the town, bisecting it on a diagonal path from northwest to southeast. The settlement was established in the 7th century, growing up around a monastery founded by Saint Adhelm, and by the Middle Ages it was a busy market town with an annual Fair. Its primary product was wool, and by 1801, Frome was one of the largest towns in Somerset, bigger than either Taunton or Yeovil.

The population waned through the nineteenth century as major industrialists drew the working classes away from rural townships and villages into the cities. A partial recovery was sustained by print and metal work industries in the town, some of which survived into the 21st century. Felix Dennis, one of the men who founded – and was prosecuted for publishing – Oz Magazine (“the most controversial magazine of the 1960s”) invested in Butler and Tanner, a printing company founded in Frome in the early 19th century; and John Webb Singer, born in Frome in 1819, established a metalworks factory in the town which specialised in statuary in the late 19th and early 20th century, casting the Figure of Justice at the Old Bailey and Boudica and Her Daughters on the Thames Embankment.

The decline in demand for wool production, coupled with increasing globalisation during the latter half of the 20th century brought significant economic challenges. Butler and Tanner finally closed in 2008, making almost 300 employees redundant; Singers still exists in an industrial estate on the edge of Frome, though in a much-reduced capacity. Thanks in part, to the emergence of a flourishing small-crafting industry and independent traders – including multiple market days, its picturesque locale and an influx of urban migrants since the 1990s, Frome has been in a process of revitalisation and is now regularly voted the best place to live in Somerset, which is widely reported in the local and national press.

Independence, Connection and Proximity

We are interested in learning about Frome for many reasons. Most relevant for us, it has a growing national reputation for its unique political culture, which has already attracted a number of studies including The Politics of Transition by Amy Burnett. Over the past twenty years, it has contributed significantly to the development of new models of local governance and community engagement, predominantly the elimination of Party Politics at local elections via a coalition of independents, the Independents for Frome (IfF) who have controlled the town council since 2011. Self-proclaimed as being free from ideological and Party constraints, the IfF group set out to transform the way local governance was practised, focusing on cooperation and collaboration between colleagues and with the community. After the pandemic, Peter Macfadyen and his fellow independents set up Flatpack 2021, a mentoring network to encourage others to move away from traditional frameworks of combative governance and towards respectful collectivism, where meeting the needs of the population takes precedence over (Party) political preferences.

This independent ‘mindset’ can also be seen in Frome’s local economy with various markets and independent shops, the third sector and cultural networks that support and promote independence of different kinds. At The Station, a collaboration between chefs, organic and regenerative growers, and entrepreneurs have transformed a former train station warehouse into a dining hub, creative space and community sauna. There are pioneering initiatives working on local challenges relating to the environment, sustainable living and poverty, such as Edventure Frome, Fair Frome, The Good Heart and multiple Community Interest Companies (CICs) and independent charities.

There may be some unintended consequences to this mindset. The success of IfF may have contributed to a decreased turnout at more recent local elections due to a lack of opposition candidates standing and reduced political ‘choice’. Independent makers, growers and traders have higher overheads, and so their products often cost more, presenting issues of exclusivity and accessibility. However ‘thriving’ or ‘vibrant’ they may appear on the surface, CICs often rely on volunteering to survive and are vulnerable to the short-term, competitive funding landscape. Similarly, as a recent Frome Town Council Report highlighted, there are neighbourhoods of multiple deprivation, and significant concerns about the cost of living, lack of social and affordable housing, and opportunities for young people. How can a strong and equitable political and cultural economy be maintained or is there a limit to Frome’s current model of independence within the wider political economy of the United Kingdom?

Established academic research shows that where places have residents with high social, cultural and financial capital there are a greater number of stronger independent networks and activities, as well as the capacities and skillsets that sustain them. This is particularly evident in Frome. However, many existing studies on these topics, such as volunteering or community cohesion overlook the social, cultural and material relations that sustain networks and community connectedness where and when they occur. As such, we want to learn more about Frome’s proximities – by which we mean the perceived or actual closeness between people. This is not solely about physical distance – though Frome’s population density is also a factor – proximity impacts interactions and relationships between people and things, and is a key pillar of social, institutional and ideological connections.

Next steps

In consultation with our partners and collaborators in the town, we have devised a programme of research activities that will focus on Frome’s independent mindset(s) and its cultures of connection and proximity. In addition to ‘traditional’ methods such as interviews and surveys, we will soon be recruiting participants for a series of civic imaginary workshops, an oral history project, and a community-led film project with Dr. John Sealey from Fabian’s Film. We will also soon advertise a call to the local creative sector for an exciting artistic collaboration. Through all of these, we hope to learn about the kinds of imagining and agency that Frome’s independence, connection and proximity have nurtured, and how they function as guiding principles across Frome’s civic infrastructure.