Today (May 11) is Somerset Day, and there are plenty of reasons to be proud of our county.

Here are a few interesting facts that you might not have heard before….

– Somerset pre-dates England itself and is older than any state in Europe

– Alfred is the only Monarch to have been called the Great, following his defeat of the invading Danes, when he gathered 'all the people of Somerset' in May 878 . He is regarded by many to be the first King of England. By the 890's Alfred's charters and coinage were referring to him as 'King of the English'.

– On 11 May 973 that St Dunstan, the Somerset-born Archbishop of Canterbury, conducted the coronation of King Edgar in Bath Abbey, an occasion of great significance in the history of the English crown. This was the first coronation of an English king for which any kind of extended record survives and still forms the basis for the coronation service used in modern times.

– The Wellington Monument, standing at 175ft, is the highest three-sided obelisk in the world. It was erected in memory of the Iron Duke, the Duke of Wellington, the hero of Waterloo, vanquisher of Napoleon and described by poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson as the 'last great Englishman'.

– Cheddar Gorge is the largest Gorge in Britain and is where Britain's oldest complete human skeleton, Cheddar Man, estimated to be 9,000 years old, was found in 1903

– The Quantocks are England's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, designated in 1956

– Taunton was the first town in England to be lit permanently by electric lighting in 1881

– The Founder of the Royal Air Force, Viscount Trenchard, was born in Taunton

– Admiral Blake, thought by many to be one of the founding figures of the Royal Navy, was born in Bridgwater.

– The last ever pitched battle to be fought on English soil took place at Westonzoyland in 1685.

– Tarr Steps near Winsford is believed to be the oldest working bridge in Britain.

– Glastonbury, famous in the Middle Ages as the location of the earliest Christian church in England, is regarded by many as the cradle of Christianity in England

– Wells is the smallest city in England

– Vicars' Close, in Wells, Somerset, England, is claimed to be the oldest purely residential street with original buildings surviving intact in Europe.

– Somerset is home to the largest music festival in the world - Glastonbury

– The West Somerset Railway is the longest preserved steam railway in the country

– Somerset is home to the largest construction project in Europe at Hinckley Point

– One of the largest privately owned company's in the UK, Clarks, was founded in Street in 1825 where it is still based.

– One of the best selling vacuum cleaners in the world, the iconic Henry, is made in Chard in Somerset, where Numatic employ over 1,000 people

– Somerset is home to the oldest and most important cloth archive in the world – held by Fox Brothers in Wellington, which was one of the main centres of cloth production in England

– There are currently 8500 food and drink and farm suppliers in the county, which is THE largest concentration of any county in the UK, making Somerset the 'breadbasket of England'

– The Food & Drink Industry together with tourism and leisure is worth nearly £2 billion to the economy and is estimated to host nearly 70,000 jobs

– The largest privately owned Cheese producer in the UK, Wyke Farms, is based near Bruton

– One of the most famous cider brands in the UK is still family owned with 500 acres of its own orchards here in Somerset.

– Bridgwater carnival, which draws an annual attendance of around 150,000 people is widely believed to be the largest illuminated carnival in Europe