The Western Gazette was first published in 1863, and in 1867 absorbed the splendidly named Western Flying Post & Mercury. This paper combined the Sherborne Mercury (1737) and the Western Flying Post (1744).

Based in Yeovil, the present-day 'Gaz' appears in no fewer than eleven different editions to serve the whole of Dorset, nearly all of Somerset, and parts of Wiltshire and Devon.