Beaminster all round, Wi' hedges, reachèn up between A thousand vields o' zummer green. </poem> It is a location for part of the story for the post-apocalyptic novel The Day of the Triffids. Samuel Hearne explorer, naturalist and writer grew up in Beaminster. Beaminster is the adopted hometown of actor Martin Clunes, and was where singer PJ Harvey went to school. Mat Follas had his first restaurant The Wild Garlic in the town square, though in 2013 it was moved to larger premises elsewhere. Beaminster is also home of Lynne Reid Banks, author of "The L-Shaped Room" and "The Indian in
Lynne Reid Banks and a sequel about Charlotte Brontë, "Path to the Silent Country". Banks was born in London, the only child of James and Muriel Reid Banks. She was evacuated to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, during World War II and returned after the war was over. She attended St Teresa's School Effingham in Surrey. Prior to becoming a writer, Banks was an actress, and also worked as a television journalist in Britain, one of the first women to do so. In 1962 Banks emigrated to Israel, where she taught for eight years on an Israeli kibbutz Yas'ur. In 1965 she married Chaim Stephenson