Our countryside is open again Jeremy Seal walks the Mendip Way, one of many routes closed by foot-and-mouth that have now reopened. Times, 8/9/2001
On the upland pastures above Draycott we paused to watch a buzzard rise from a lone ash tree. It swung away across the Somerset Levels, a sunlit patchwork of tawny fields veined with silvery drainage ditches stretching west to the Bristol Channel and south to the Quantocks. For five months, Foot and Mouth restrictions had deprived us of such simple pleasures. After all that making do - a city trail here, a road stroll there - it felt like rapture to be back in our walking boots again.
We were walking the Mendip Way, formally the 30-mile West Mendip Way from Weston-Super-Mare to Wells and the 19-mile East Mendip Way extension to Frome. Just one among more than 500 recognised walks of over 20 miles in the UK, the Mendip Way is a personal favourite, with spellbinding, often uninterrupted views both south and north from the Mendip Hill's 800-foot tops, and spectacular set pieces en route including Cheddar Gorge, the caves at Wookey Hole and the cathedral at Wells. Some regard these popular attractions as a rude intervention. Others consider them a welcome relief, which is a measure of eerily beguiling character of the high pastures, ancient drystone walls, abandoned limestone quarries and silent beechwoods that prevail on the largely unsettled Mendip tops.
The Mendip Way reopened on 27th July, along with the majority of other UK footpaths where restrictions had been in place. When we set out just three days later, we reckoned ourselves smalltime pioneers. Since we would probably be the first to walk its entire 49-mile length since its closure in March, we were ready for obstructions. Some sections were likely to be overgrown, and we were advised to carry sticks and wear long trousers. We also suspected - rightly enough, as it turned out - that some farmers along the way would have been in no hurry to welcome back walkers by removing the CLOSED signs across their properties.
There were at least OPEN signs at the path's beginning - above the Bristol Channel beach at Uphill, where a solitary teenager was gunning his moped along the strand. 'There's always one,' sighed a disgruntled couple of pensioners above the whine of the engine, rearranging the picnic rug across their knees. I nodded in sympathy (but there was 20 miles walking ahead that day, and come the late afternoon I would have fallen to my knees in worship of that machine if it had only been available to transport me to our lodgings at Cheddar).
The path rose gradually out of the river valley to the village of Bleadon and lunch - a Ploughman's and a pint of Butcombe - at the Queen's Arms. Then we were climbing through fields of buttercups and ragwort to the ridgeway where beech trees overhung ancient bridleways. We dropped down to cross the M5 at Loxton and halted at the nearby Romany Museum, closed now but still worth a passing gawp for the brightly painted gypsy caravans, fairground swings and merry-go-rounds disappearing, like the world they evoked, into deep swathes of summer grass. The path spiralled up through dappled woodland to break out into sunshine on the exposed moorland pastures near Crook Peak. Here, where the Mendips are a single line of hills pointing eastwards, the views north and south are among the best in Southern England. We rested in the shade of a gorse bush where an inquisitive sheep sought us out, as if we were unfamiliar objects.
After breakfast at our comfortable Cheddar B&B, we shook the stiffness from our bones and set off for Draycott. We stopped to chat with a man who was picking vegetables in his kitchen garden. He was old enough to remember the 1930s when the entire Cheddar valley was devoted to strawberry cultivation. Those days were gone, but he did send us on our way with a handful of 'gibbles', the Mendip word for spring onions.
We crossed fields of cut hay heavy with clover to reach Priddy by lunchtime where a stack of hurdle fencing on the village green, thatched to resemble a small pavilion, marked the annual sheep fair which was moved here from Wells back in 1348 on account of the Black Death and held ever year since. Priddy is the only proper settlement on the Mendips, and its people are accounted traditional and prickly. But the fine old Queen Victoria Inn did an excellent Ploughman's, and the landlord was pleased to hear that the walk was open again. Business had suffered.
Beyond Priddy was wooded Ebbor Gorge, less spectacular than its Cheddar counterpart but more enjoyable intimate for being so little visited. We emerged from the woods onto a grassy ledge where a hippy stared at the view beyond the gorge stretching to the New Age mecca indicated by Glastonbury Tor.
'The Astral Plains,' he quipped. At Wookey Hole we bathed our sore feet in the stream and drank milkshakes in the village tea rooms. An hour later we were slipping into the cool interior of Wells Cathedral.
It was here, where the East Mendip Way begins, that the waymarking became rather more haphazard the next morning. The foliage began to close in; there were evidently sections here that nobody had walked all summer. We flailed our way across stone stiles which were crammed with brambles and nettles. Rights of way across fields around Chelynch were lost in waist-high wheat and, in one case, eight-foot maize which we crept through in a fronded crush. At Shepton Mallet, we came across the first of several intimidating pink CLOSED signs on farm gates. A large bucket of disinfectant stood nearby. The solution was to call up the sign's helpline number on a mobile; the way was open, came the prompt assurance. We continued on our way without challenge.
On the last afternoon, a witheringly hot one, we were still a great many miles shy of the walk's end at the country town of Frome when a woman in Downhead - may your village always flourish - brought us ice-cold colas as we passed her garden. No question about it; it wouldn't have happened if we'd been on mopeds.
ENDS
FACTBOX
Accommodation.
Chedwell Cottage, Cheddar (01934 743268; [email protected]). B&B from £20.00 per person.
Burcott Mill, near Wells (01749 673118; www.burcottmill.com). B&B from £19 per person, but some 2 miles off the path.
The Crown Hotel, Wells (01749 673457). B&B from £22.50 per person
Pubs and teahouses.
The Queen's Arms, Bleadon (01934 812080). Attractive traditional village pub
Gardener's Arms, Cheddar (01934 742235). Excellent pub food
Queen Victoria Inn, Priddy. (no phone). Atmospheric old village pub
The Burcott Inn, Wookey (01749 673874) Good evening meals
Poacher's Pocket, Chelynch (01749 880220)
The Old Bakery Tearooms, Wookey Hole (01749 673169)
Taxis:
A&M Taxis, Cheddar (07788 43687)
Wookey Taxis (01749 678039)
Trains. Stations at Weston-Super-Mare and Frome.
Maps:
Ordnance Survey Explorers, Nos 153, 141 & 142.
Although the walk is waymarked, walkers risk getting lost without a copy of Uphill to Frome: A Guide to the Mendip Way by David Wright. £6.99 from Mendip Tourism Information Centres (TICs) including Cheddar (01934 744071), Wells (01749 672552) and Frome (01373 467271) or by mail order, priced £8 inc postage and packing, from David Wright, Inglenook Cottage, Rudge, Frome, Somerset BA11 2QG.
WEEKEND WALKS
Other walks that can be completed over a weekend, a long one in some cases:
1066 COUNTRY WALK, SUSSEX
This waymarked 31-mile walk, from Pevensey to Rye, loosely shadows the progress of William the Conqueror, taking in the site of the Battle of Hastings at Battle as well as the castles at Pevensey and Herstmonceux, and the port of Winchelsea. There are many pubs along the way. Overnight accommodation at Battle (Battle TIC; 01424 773721). OS Explorer Map 124.
THE PAINTERS' WAY, EAST ANGLIA
Devised in 1980, the 24-mile Painters' Way runs from Sudbury, Suffolk to Manningtree in Essex. It follows the hills and valleys to the estuary salt marshes of the River Stour, taking its name from the three great artists who lived and worked here - John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Alfred Munnings. Gainsborough's house can be visited in Sudbury, and a short diversion takes in Constable's birthplace at East Bergholt, and the mills at Dedham and Flatford. Information from East Bergholt TIC (01206 299460). OS Explorer 196.
THE SAINTS' WAY, CORNWALL
A 26-mile, waymarked coast-to-coast route from Padstow to Fowey, through woodlands and pastures, moors and villages. The path connects a number of religious sites including shrines, standing stones, holy wells and chapels, and follows in the footsteps of early holy men as well as traders from Ireland and Wales. The Saints' Way Guide (£3.99 from local TICs) has information on sites, terrain, facilities and accommodation. Further information from Padstow TIC (01841 533449). OS Explorer maps 106, 107.
THE BRONTE WAY, LANCASHIRE AND WEST YORKSHIRE
A waymarked 40-mile, cross-Pennine route linking various places associated with the lives and works of the Bronte sisters. The route takes in the Bronte birthplace at Thornton, Haworth village and the moors featured in Wuthering Heights. The Bronte Way by Marje Wilson (£4.50) is available from Haworth TIC (01535 642329), who can also provide accommodation information. OS Outdoor Leisure 21, Explorer 288
On the upland pastures above Draycott we paused to watch a buzzard rise from a lone ash tree. It swung away across the Somerset Levels, a sunlit patchwork of tawny fields veined with silvery drainage ditches stretching west to the Bristol Channel and south to the Quantocks. For five months, Foot and Mouth restrictions had deprived us of such simple pleasures. After all that making do - a city trail here, a road stroll there - it felt like rapture to be back in our walking boots again.
We were walking the Mendip Way, formally the 30-mile West Mendip Way from Weston-Super-Mare to Wells and the 19-mile East Mendip Way extension to Frome. Just one among more than 500 recognised walks of over 20 miles in the UK, the Mendip Way is a personal favourite, with spellbinding, often uninterrupted views both south and north from the Mendip Hill's 800-foot tops, and spectacular set pieces en route including Cheddar Gorge, the caves at Wookey Hole and the cathedral at Wells. Some regard these popular attractions as a rude intervention. Others consider them a welcome relief, which is a measure of eerily beguiling character of the high pastures, ancient drystone walls, abandoned limestone quarries and silent beechwoods that prevail on the largely unsettled Mendip tops.
The Mendip Way reopened on 27th July, along with the majority of other UK footpaths where restrictions had been in place. When we set out just three days later, we reckoned ourselves smalltime pioneers. Since we would probably be the first to walk its entire 49-mile length since its closure in March, we were ready for obstructions. Some sections were likely to be overgrown, and we were advised to carry sticks and wear long trousers. We also suspected - rightly enough, as it turned out - that some farmers along the way would have been in no hurry to welcome back walkers by removing the CLOSED signs across their properties.
There were at least OPEN signs at the path's beginning - above the Bristol Channel beach at Uphill, where a solitary teenager was gunning his moped along the strand. 'There's always one,' sighed a disgruntled couple of pensioners above the whine of the engine, rearranging the picnic rug across their knees. I nodded in sympathy (but there was 20 miles walking ahead that day, and come the late afternoon I would have fallen to my knees in worship of that machine if it had only been available to transport me to our lodgings at Cheddar).
The path rose gradually out of the river valley to the village of Bleadon and lunch - a Ploughman's and a pint of Butcombe - at the Queen's Arms. Then we were climbing through fields of buttercups and ragwort to the ridgeway where beech trees overhung ancient bridleways. We dropped down to cross the M5 at Loxton and halted at the nearby Romany Museum, closed now but still worth a passing gawp for the brightly painted gypsy caravans, fairground swings and merry-go-rounds disappearing, like the world they evoked, into deep swathes of summer grass. The path spiralled up through dappled woodland to break out into sunshine on the exposed moorland pastures near Crook Peak. Here, where the Mendips are a single line of hills pointing eastwards, the views north and south are among the best in Southern England. We rested in the shade of a gorse bush where an inquisitive sheep sought us out, as if we were unfamiliar objects.
After breakfast at our comfortable Cheddar B&B, we shook the stiffness from our bones and set off for Draycott. We stopped to chat with a man who was picking vegetables in his kitchen garden. He was old enough to remember the 1930s when the entire Cheddar valley was devoted to strawberry cultivation. Those days were gone, but he did send us on our way with a handful of 'gibbles', the Mendip word for spring onions.
We crossed fields of cut hay heavy with clover to reach Priddy by lunchtime where a stack of hurdle fencing on the village green, thatched to resemble a small pavilion, marked the annual sheep fair which was moved here from Wells back in 1348 on account of the Black Death and held ever year since. Priddy is the only proper settlement on the Mendips, and its people are accounted traditional and prickly. But the fine old Queen Victoria Inn did an excellent Ploughman's, and the landlord was pleased to hear that the walk was open again. Business had suffered.
Beyond Priddy was wooded Ebbor Gorge, less spectacular than its Cheddar counterpart but more enjoyable intimate for being so little visited. We emerged from the woods onto a grassy ledge where a hippy stared at the view beyond the gorge stretching to the New Age mecca indicated by Glastonbury Tor.
'The Astral Plains,' he quipped. At Wookey Hole we bathed our sore feet in the stream and drank milkshakes in the village tea rooms. An hour later we were slipping into the cool interior of Wells Cathedral.
It was here, where the East Mendip Way begins, that the waymarking became rather more haphazard the next morning. The foliage began to close in; there were evidently sections here that nobody had walked all summer. We flailed our way across stone stiles which were crammed with brambles and nettles. Rights of way across fields around Chelynch were lost in waist-high wheat and, in one case, eight-foot maize which we crept through in a fronded crush. At Shepton Mallet, we came across the first of several intimidating pink CLOSED signs on farm gates. A large bucket of disinfectant stood nearby. The solution was to call up the sign's helpline number on a mobile; the way was open, came the prompt assurance. We continued on our way without challenge.
On the last afternoon, a witheringly hot one, we were still a great many miles shy of the walk's end at the country town of Frome when a woman in Downhead - may your village always flourish - brought us ice-cold colas as we passed her garden. No question about it; it wouldn't have happened if we'd been on mopeds.
ENDS
FACTBOX
Accommodation.
Chedwell Cottage, Cheddar (01934 743268; [email protected]). B&B from £20.00 per person.
Burcott Mill, near Wells (01749 673118; www.burcottmill.com). B&B from £19 per person, but some 2 miles off the path.
The Crown Hotel, Wells (01749 673457). B&B from £22.50 per person
Pubs and teahouses.
The Queen's Arms, Bleadon (01934 812080). Attractive traditional village pub
Gardener's Arms, Cheddar (01934 742235). Excellent pub food
Queen Victoria Inn, Priddy. (no phone). Atmospheric old village pub
The Burcott Inn, Wookey (01749 673874) Good evening meals
Poacher's Pocket, Chelynch (01749 880220)
The Old Bakery Tearooms, Wookey Hole (01749 673169)
Taxis:
A&M Taxis, Cheddar (07788 43687)
Wookey Taxis (01749 678039)
Trains. Stations at Weston-Super-Mare and Frome.
Maps:
Ordnance Survey Explorers, Nos 153, 141 & 142.
Although the walk is waymarked, walkers risk getting lost without a copy of Uphill to Frome: A Guide to the Mendip Way by David Wright. £6.99 from Mendip Tourism Information Centres (TICs) including Cheddar (01934 744071), Wells (01749 672552) and Frome (01373 467271) or by mail order, priced £8 inc postage and packing, from David Wright, Inglenook Cottage, Rudge, Frome, Somerset BA11 2QG.
WEEKEND WALKS
Other walks that can be completed over a weekend, a long one in some cases:
1066 COUNTRY WALK, SUSSEX
This waymarked 31-mile walk, from Pevensey to Rye, loosely shadows the progress of William the Conqueror, taking in the site of the Battle of Hastings at Battle as well as the castles at Pevensey and Herstmonceux, and the port of Winchelsea. There are many pubs along the way. Overnight accommodation at Battle (Battle TIC; 01424 773721). OS Explorer Map 124.
THE PAINTERS' WAY, EAST ANGLIA
Devised in 1980, the 24-mile Painters' Way runs from Sudbury, Suffolk to Manningtree in Essex. It follows the hills and valleys to the estuary salt marshes of the River Stour, taking its name from the three great artists who lived and worked here - John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Alfred Munnings. Gainsborough's house can be visited in Sudbury, and a short diversion takes in Constable's birthplace at East Bergholt, and the mills at Dedham and Flatford. Information from East Bergholt TIC (01206 299460). OS Explorer 196.
THE SAINTS' WAY, CORNWALL
A 26-mile, waymarked coast-to-coast route from Padstow to Fowey, through woodlands and pastures, moors and villages. The path connects a number of religious sites including shrines, standing stones, holy wells and chapels, and follows in the footsteps of early holy men as well as traders from Ireland and Wales. The Saints' Way Guide (£3.99 from local TICs) has information on sites, terrain, facilities and accommodation. Further information from Padstow TIC (01841 533449). OS Explorer maps 106, 107.
THE BRONTE WAY, LANCASHIRE AND WEST YORKSHIRE
A waymarked 40-mile, cross-Pennine route linking various places associated with the lives and works of the Bronte sisters. The route takes in the Bronte birthplace at Thornton, Haworth village and the moors featured in Wuthering Heights. The Bronte Way by Marje Wilson (£4.50) is available from Haworth TIC (01535 642329), who can also provide accommodation information. OS Outdoor Leisure 21, Explorer 288
