Mendips & North Somerset

Towns & Villages

AXBRIDGE

King John's Hunting Lodge, Axbridge - Photo: Martin Clark

A small and ancient market town, Axbridge sits on the banks of the River Axe close to Wells and the Cheddar Gorge in the Mendip Hills. Once the centre of a local woolen industry, it was used as a base for deer hunting by both Saxon and Norman kings. King John's Hunting Lodge, a former merchant’s house, is now a museum. Its exhibits include stocks, a bull-baiting anchor and a Roman skeleton.

BURNHAM-ON-SEA

Lying at the mouth of the River Parrett on Bridgwater Bay in the Bristol Channel, this is an evergreen seaside resort with the shortest pier in Britain and a stretch of treacherous mudflats. It possesses a number of lighthouses including a 19th century ‘lighthouse on legs’ built by a local cleric who tried in vain to create a local spa. The town’s church, St Andrews, dates to the 14th century. A popular attraction is a wildlife park fashioned from disused clay pits. Wildlife-rich Brean Down is a high, limestone promontory jutting into the sea and owned by the National Trust. It contains pre-Roman archaeology and a 19th century fort.
 

Brean Down Fort - Photo: Eirian Evans

Lighthouse at Burnham-on-Sea - Photo: Brian Robert Marshall

CHEDDAR

The road through Cheddar Gorge - Photo: Tim

For hundreds of years this small village was the focal point for the manufacture of Cheddar cheese, a morsel now produced all over the world. The village stands at the foot of the stunning Cheddar Gorge whose high limestone cliffs soar to nearly 500 feet. The rocks are peppered with hundreds of caves and two of them, Gough’s and Cox’s, have remarkable stalagmites and stalactites. Cheddar Man – the oldest complete prehistoric human skeleton ever found in Britain - was discovered in Gough’s Cave in 1903.

CLEVEDON

A small, traditional seaside resort, Clevedon existed as far back as the 11th century but came of age during the Victorian era when families from nearby Bristol sought the sea air. Its pier, opened in 1869, is one of the oldest in England. Visitors can take cruises across the Bristol Channel from here. The long seafront contains gardens, a lake and other genteel asides while a light railway carries tourists around Salthouse Fields. The ‘Curzon’ cinema is the oldest of its type in the world.

Clevedon tidal lake - Photo: Clive Perrin

Clevedon Court - Photo: Derek Meek

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge honeymooned here with his bride Sarah Fricker. Another writer, William Makepeace Thackeray (‘Vanity Fair’), was a frequent visitor to 14th century Clevedon Court, now run by the National Trust. One of the building’s former owners, Sir Edmund Elton, created the famous ‘Elton Ware’ pottery. The Court was also once home to Arthur Hallam who inspired Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam’. Nearby is an Iron Age fort known as Cadbury Camp.

CONGRESBURY

A village on the banks of the River Yeo, Congresbury is overshadowed by the magnificent Mendip Hills. At 500ft, nearby Wrington Hill offers irresistible views.

Congresbury moor taken from Cadbury Hill - Photo: FollowMeChaps

EVERCREECH

St. Peter's Church, Evercreech - Photo: Nigel Freeman

A village in the Mendip Hills, Evercreech lies close to Shepton Mallet and boasts a 14th century church.

FAULKLAND

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Falkland village pond and cottages - Photo: Jim Champion

FROME

Bridge at Frome - Photo: Phil Williams

A market town at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, Frome has the same name as the river that passes through it. Spanning the river is a splendid, five-arched stone bridge. Frome has an atmospheric medieval town centre and once stood at the heart of a prosperous weaving industry. Many old weavers' cottages still survive. Notable modern-day attractions include a local museum and a Cheese and Grain Hall that has been transformed into a concert venue. The church of St John the Baptist, built on the foundations of an earlier Saxon structure, boasts a tall spire.

GLASTONBURY

Lying on the banks of the River Brue, glorious Glastonbury is a curious amalgam of Christianity and paganism, the reputed burial place of King Arthur and the hiding place of the Holy Grail. During the medieval period, the Benedictine Abbey of St Mary was one of England’s richest monasteries. According to legend it was founded by Joseph of Arimathea who brought a sacred chalice containing the blood of Jesus from the Middle East. The ‘grail’ chalice is, supposedly, secreted in the Chalice Well at the foot of Glastonbury Tor, a 500ft hill. The Tor dominates the town and is topped by St Michael’s Tower.

Glastonbury Tor - Photo: Alan Simkins

KEWSTOKE

Dunes at Sand Bay - Photo: Tom Pennington

This pretty coastal village near Weston-super-Mare overlooks Sand Bay on the Bristol Channel. A local Pontins camp is now known as 'Sand Bay Holiday Village'.

MELLS

An attractive village with stone-built houses and thatched cottages, Mells also boasts an Elizabethan manor house and a 15^th century church with a tall tower. There are fine views from the village and nearby are several prehistoric camps. These include Tedbury Camp with earthworks that rise in places to 13 feet. The Manor is erroneously linked with the nursery rhyme ‘Little Jack Horner’ it was owned for centuries by the Horner family.

Mells Manor - Photo: Derek Hawkins

NAILSEA

Tyntesfield house - Photo: Dave Bushell

This old village is famous for the manufacture of glass after John Lucas created one of the world’s largest glassworks here in the late 18^th century. Nearby at Wraxall is the many-turreted, Gothic Revival mansion of Tyntesfield. Built in the 19^th century, the house and gardens are in the hands of the National Trust.

NORTON RADSTOCK

A ‘twin town’ in an area famous for coal mining and railways, Norton Radstock consists of Midsomer Norton, on the banks of the River Somer, and Radstock. Two 15th century churches are among the oldest buildings of note. One of them, the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Ghost, is housed in a tithe barn that was converted by architect Gilbert Scott. Radstock Museum is housed in a restored Victorian market hall and possesses memorabilia from the Somerset Coal Canal and Somerset and Dorset Great Western Railways. Writhlington School has the largest collection of orchids outside Kew Gardens.

Midsomer Norton Highstreet - Photo: Nigel Shoosmith

PRIDDY

Priddy Church - Photo: MYM

One of the highest villages in the Mendip Hills, Priddy once lay at the heart of a widespread lead mining industry. The workers often frequented the isolated Castle of Comfort Inn. Nearby is a set of prehistoric barrows and the huge limestone cleft known as Ebbor Rocks.

SHEPTON MALLET

High in the Mendip Hills, this delightful town was an historic centre of the wool trade. Its ancient market area has a 50ft cross dating to 1500. The town witnessed the first skirmish of the English Civil War when royalists cut down a band of local parliamentarians. More blood was spilled here in 1685 when a dozen of the Duke of Monmouth’s rebels died on notorious Judge Jeffrey’s gibbets.

Market Cross at Shepton Mallet - Photo: Nigel Freeman

STREET

Two brewers pub in Street - Photo: Brian

This small Somerset town owes its name to its proximity with a Roman ‘street’, the Fosse Way. Its most famous citizens were a family of shoemakers, the Clarks, who started a global footwear company by selling slipper-linings from sheepskin off-cuts in the early 19th century. The firm’s original buildings later became the first purpose-built factory outlet in the UK.

WELLS

England’s smallest city is also one of its most picturesque and evocative. It is dominated by a magnificently ornate and detailed Gothic cathedral and associated ecclesiastical buildings. The cathedral’s west front, for example, has no less than 386 niches containing a phalanx of medieval sculptures featuring saints and kings. Within are a remarkable ‘scissors vault’ and a 14th century clock on which knightly figures regularly do battle.

Wells Cathedral - Photo: Pam Brophy

Croquet lawn at Bishops Palace in Wells - Photo: Danny Robinson

Nearby Bishop’s Palace has been home to the Bishops of Bath and Wells since the 13th century and is encircled by a picturesque moat fed by qderground springs.

WESTON-SUPER-MARE

This well-known seaside resort underwent its first tourist boom in the 19th century when the Victorians fled cities in search of beachside holidays following the opening of the railways. The town’s Grand Pier arrived in 1904. Then, in 1927, the Winter Gardens and Pavilion were built.

Today’s attractions include a helicopter museum, aquarium and miniature railway while the paddle steam Waverley and a second boat, the Balmoral, offer trips across the Bristol Channel and into the Severn Estuary. Ellenborough Park lies in the centre of the resort and has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
 

Beach at Weston-Super-Mare - Photo: Roy Parkhouse

WOOKEY

Subterranean Lake at Wookey Hole - Photo: Pam Brophy

A small village with a big reputation, Wookey is close to Wookey Hole, one of Britain’s most famous cave systems. Carved out of Somerset’s limestone bedrock by the waters of the River Axe, the caves contain fascinating rock sculptures including, in the Great Cave, a huge stalagmite known as the ‘Witch of Wookey’. A local museum explains the history of this subterranean world and displays many archaeological finds. The nearby Wookey Hole Paper Mill dates from 1610 and is one of the oldest paper mills surviving in Britain.