Man Who Rates Benches Finally Finds His 10/10
Social media is full of people with esoteric hobbies, and Sam Wilmot's is scoring benches on a scale from 0 to 10.
He set up the Instagram account Rate This Bench in 2019 after jokingly judging benches while out walking with friends. Since then he has featured more than 300 benches around the world, and had never awarded full marks until revisiting one at St John The Baptist Church in Old Sodbury, South Gloucestershire, on his wedding day.
The 29-year-old Brit waited until a very special moment to give out his first 10/10 rating: His wedding day. In a post that’s since gone viral, Wilmot and now-wife Sophie pose on the bench outside the 13th-century church where they wed in June. “No moment or bench will ever come close to this for me, I can proudly say I have found my 10. In Sophie, and this bench,” he wrote in the caption.
"People are always asking why there's never been a 10," Wilmot told the BBC. "I'm never going to sit on a bench again that's going to have that feeling."
The bench, which overlooks countryside towards Bristol and Wales, had previously scored 9/10 but became the account's first perfect rating after Wilmot and his wife Sophie returned there for photographs following their ceremony at the church.
"The first time I reviewed it, I gave it a 9/10. But when we first discussed getting married, I mentioned that I would like this church to be involved purely on the basis of this bench." Sophie says: "When I met Sam and we discovered the bench in our early time of dating, I knew it would be a place of significance for us." Adding: "The best view, on the best day, sat on the best bench."
