The Mendip Hills and The Coast
First impressions would lead you to believe that The Mendip Hills National Landscape leads an existence separate from the nearby Somerset coast. The Mendip Hills are a landlocked area of 200 square kilometres towards the north of Somerset, but when you delve a little deeper, you soon find the coastal links are stronger than you might have realised.
Nearly 2000 years ago, in AD49, the Roman Legions, within six years of invading, headed to What is now the Mendip Hills National Landscape, searching for the lead upon which their empire depended. Lead and its associated silver were mined all over the hills but significantly around the Charterhouse and Priddy areas. This lead, which was sent all over the Roman empire as far as Georgia and North Africa, started its journey down the Cheddar Yeo, then the River Axe from Cheddar to the port at Uphill near Weston Super-Mare, where boats took it further than any locals could imagine. Mendip lead has been found in the Colosseum in Rome and the ruins of Pompei. This lead has now mostly gone, with Victorians reworking much of the Roman mining in the mid-1800s with varying degrees of success.
The Marina at Uphill is now the starting point for the Mendip Way, a 50-kilometre long-distance footpath stretching across the hills towards Frome in the east. It's a fantastic way for the more energetic to see the hills and take in some of the best views in the area over a long weekend or two with a halfway break in Wells.
The limestone karst of the Mendips doesn’t stop at the end of the National Landscape but continues out into the Bristol Channel to Steepholm and beyond. However, not part of the National Landscape, a trip to Steepholm is an adventure that will have you reminiscing for years. Was it the small boat that got you there, the fort, the landing on the beach, or the cider, or maybe just a cup of tea in the sun at the old barracks that will be the highlight? There is so much to see there that it is almost too much for a day trip.
Back at the end of mainland Mendip sits Brean Down, a limestone promontory protruding into the Bristol Channel. Surrounded by cliffs and some of the fiercest tides in the area, this has, like Steepholm, been used as a defensive outpost far back in history. The fort on the tip dates back to Napoleonic times but was repurposed during the Second World War to defend the Bristol Channel against possible invasion. On top of the down, there have also been discovered the remains of a Roman temple showing the significance of the area, or were they just ensuring their lead got on the right boats in the harbour below?
In October 2023, the new Mendip National Nature Reserve was declared with the limestone grassland of Brean Down as its most westerly point. The NNR is a plan to link the management of over 1400 hectares of different habitats, mainly along the southern slopes, to protect and enhance the nature of the Mendip Hills into the future. There are views over the somerset levels from much of the new NNR and the Mendip way, which passes through it. From here, seeing the water-shaped hills such as Nyland, Glastonbury Tor, and the Wedmore ridge allude to the ancient sea that would’ve covered the area, with much of the southern slopes of the Mendip having been the coast.
It's fascinating how an area so seemingly distant from the sea can have its history and landscape affected by it so much. Not by the waves of water but by the waves of trade and people that have come and gone over millennia. On top of all this, hundreds of millions of years ago, the hills themselves were born out of the sea, with the limestone being created by the remains of infinite sea creatures and mud settling on the bed of a tropical ocean somewhere off the coast of what is now Argentina, but that story can wait for another time.