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Top Attractions in Mendip

Wookey Hole Caves

Wookey Hole Caves are a series of limestone caverns, show cave and tourist attraction in the village of Wookey Hole on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills near Wells in Somerset, England. The River Axe flows through the cave. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest for both biological and geological reasons. Wookey Hole cave is a "solutional cave", one that is formed through a process of weathering in which the natural acid in groundwater dissolves the rocks. Some of the water originates as rain that flows into streams on impervious rocks on the plateau before sinking at the limestone boundary into cave systems such as Swildons Hole, Eastwater Cavern and St Cuthberts Swallet; the remainder is rain that percolates directly through the limestone. The caves are at a constant temperature of 11 °C . The caves have been used by humans for around 45,000 years, demonstrated by the discovery of tools from the Palaeolithic period, along with the fossilised animal remains. Evidence of Stone and Iron Age occupation continued into Roman Britain. A corn grinding mill operated on the resurgent waters of the River Axe as early as 1086. The waters of the river are used in a handmade paper mill, the oldest extant in Britain, which began operations circa 1610. The low temperature of the caves means that they can be used for maturing Cheddar cheese. The caves are the site of the first cave dives in Britain which were undertaken by Jack Sheppard and Graham Balcombe. Since the 1930s divers have explored the extensive network of chambers developing breathing apparatus and novel techniques in the process. The full extent of the cave system is still unknown with approximately 4,000 metres, including 25 chambers, having been explored. Part of the cave system opened as a show cave in 1927 following exploratory work by Herbert E. Balch. As a tourist attraction it has been owned by Madame Tussauds and, most recently, the circus owner Gerry Cottle. The cave is noted for the Witch of Wookey Hole – a roughly human shaped stalagmite that legend says is a witch turned to stone by a monk from Glastonbury. It has also been used as a location for film and television productions.

W/L Cave

W/L Cave is part of the Fairy Cave Quarry group of caves between Stoke St Michael and Oakhill in the limestone of the Mendip Hills, in Somerset, England. It is named after the initials of its discoverers, Bob Whitaker and Jerry Lavis, was first entered in the summer of 1967. It was the first significant cave to be discovered after the destruction of Balch Cave in the same quarry. Although short it was extremely well decorated with calcite formations and ended in a large chamber with a magnificent side grotto dubbed Pink Pool Chamber. It is almost certainly part of the Balch Cave system and is the link between Balch Cave and the other systems in Fairy Cave Quarry namely Shatter Cave and Withyhill Cave. The link was proved by a digging project conducted by Pete Rose and Nick Chipchase of the Cerberus Spelaeological Society, the HQ of which club used to lie adjacent to the quarry in cottages owned by the quarry company. Pink Pool Chamber is linked to the first chamber in Shatter Cave by a narrow passage opened by blasting by the above named cavers.

Ebbor Gorge

Ebbor Gorge is a limestone gorge in Somerset, England, designated and notified in 1952 as a 63.5-hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Mendip Hills. It was donated to the National Trust in 1967 and is now managed by Natural England as a National Nature Reserve. The gorge was cut into the Clifton Down Limestone, an example of Carboniferous Limestone, by water. The floor of the gorge is impermeable Millstone Grit and Lower Coal Measures. The rare mineral mendipite has also been found. The site was occupied by humans in the Neolithic Era and their tools and flint arrow heads have been discovered, along with pottery from the Bronze Age. There are also fossils of small mammals from the Late Devensian. The nature reserve provides a habitat for a variety of flora and fauna, including flowers, butterflies and bats.

Glastonbury Festival

Glastonbury Festival is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England. In addition to contemporary music, the festival hosts dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret, and other arts. Leading pop and rock artists have headlined, alongside thousands of others appearing on smaller stages and performance areas. Films and albums recorded at Glastonbury have been released, and the festival receives extensive television and newspaper coverage. Glastonbury is the largest greenfield festival in the world, and is now attended by around 175,000 people, requiring extensive infrastructure in terms of security, transport, water, and electricity supply. The majority of staff are volunteers, helping the festival to raise millions of pounds for good causes. Inspired by the ethos of the hippie, counterculture, and free festival movements, the festival retains vestiges of these traditions, such as the Green Fields area, which includes sections known as the Green Futures and Healing Fields. After the 1970s, the festival took place almost every year and grew in size, with the number of attendees sometimes being swollen by gate-crashers. Michael Eavis hosted the first festival, then called Pilton Festival, after seeing an open-air Led Zeppelin concert at the 1970 Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music. Glastonbury Festival was held intermittently from 1970 until 1981, since when it has been held every year, except for "fallow years" intended to give the land, the local population and the organisers a break, usually taken every 5 years.

Fenny Castle

Fenny Castle is the remains of a motte and bailey castle in the parish of Wookey, Somerset, England. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is sited on a natural hillock of Lias approximately 20 metres above the surrounding flat land on the edge of the Somerset Levels. Such sites were typically chosen for castles in low-lying areas. The original builder of the castle is unknown, but it may be associated with the Anarchy, a period of English history during the reign of King Stephen which was marked by a succession crisis between the supporters of Stephen and those of his cousin, the Empress Matilda. In 1327 the owner was William atte Castle. By 1480 it was described as a ruin by William Worcestre who saw the plan of "all the houses and offices there". During the 19th century the quarrymen found twenty skeletons which were reported as dating from an unspecified period before the construction of the castle. The Castle gave its name to a hamlet of the parish of Wookey named Castle, one mile south-west of the main village. A stone cross in the hamlet, marking its importance, was still to be seen in 1839. Little remains of the stonework, and there is evidence of extensive quarrying. The mound is now covered in grass and scrub with a few trees. However, the site was described in The Archaeology of Somerset as still having "interesting and prominent earthworks".

Glastonbury Tor

Glastonbury Tor is a hill at Glastonbury in the English county of Somerset, topped by the roofless St Michaels Tower, a Grade I listed building. The whole site is managed by the National Trust, and has been designated a scheduled monument. The conical hill of clay and Blue Lias rises from the Somerset Levels. It was formed when surrounding softer deposits were eroded, leaving the hard cap of sandstone exposed. The slopes of the hill are terraced, but the method by which they were formed remains unexplained. Artefacts from human visitation have been found, dating from the Iron Age to Roman eras. Several buildings were constructed on the summit during the Saxon and early medieval periods; they have been interpreted as an early church and monks hermitage. The head of a wheel cross dating from the 10th or 11th century has been recovered. The original wooden church was destroyed by an earthquake in 1275, and the stone Church of St Michael built on the site in the 14th century. Its tower remains, although it has been restored and partially rebuilt several times. Archaeological excavations during the 20th century sought to clarify the background of the monument and church, but some aspects of their history remain unexplained. The Tor is mentioned in Celtic mythology, particularly in myths linked to King Arthur, and has a number of other enduring mythological and spiritual associations.

Balch Cave

Balch Cave is a cave in Fairy Cave Quarry, near Stoke St Michael in the limestone of the Mendip Hills, in Somerset, England. The cave is part of the complex of passages feeding to St. Dunstans Well Catchment Site of Special Scientific Interest and an abandoned Bristol Water abstraction point. It is named in honour of Herbert E. Balch who was famous for his exploration of the Caves of the Mendip Hills. The cave was broken into by quarry blasting in November 1961. Much of the cave has since been quarried away and by the end of the 1960s, major sections were destroyed. An exploration in December 1961 found a series of decorated rifts, mainly of sparkling flowstone, with a grotto fillet with pure white stalactites and pillars and a set of "organ pipes" about 10 feet wide and 15 feet high. A further visit in January 1962 explored the fourth chamber which is richly ornamented with white and cream flowstone, several narrow curtains, and miscellaneous white stalactites, and the fifth and sixth chambers with multiple Stalagmite formations. In the subsequent years continued blasting from the quarry breached the central chambers of the cave destroying some 425 feet of passages, with rockfalls destroying many of the remaining formations, and rendering other sections of the cave inaccessible. Stabilisation work at the end of the quarrys life resulted in the destruction of a further 300 feet of passage, including the original entrance series and Great Chamber. The Fairy Caves Management Committee administers the access to this cave on behalf of the quarry owners. The cave is closed from 1 October to 30 April to protect the hibernating bats.

Maesbury Castle

Maesbury Castle is an Iron Age hill fort within the parish of Croscombe on the Mendip Hills, just north of Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England. It has been listed as Scheduled Ancient Monument. The name is derived from maes, meaning field or plain in Brythonic Welsh, and burh, meaning fort in Old English. There is also a record of the name Merksburi in 705 AD, meaning boundary fort. The area was a boundary between the Romano-British Celts and West Saxons during the period 577-652 AD, when the nearby Wansdyke fortification comprised part of the border. The enclosure has an area of 2.5 hectares, and lies at a height of 292 m, with spectacular views in many directions. This includes the Somerset Levels to Glastonbury Tor and Brent Knoll which are the closest and probably the most easily identifiable landmarks from the site. The fort has a single rampart up to 6 m high, with an outer ditch . Entrances are to the south-east and north-east . The Fort and surrounding grounds are now owned by the Stevens Family who have been farming in Somerset for over 60 years.

Ham Wall

The Ham Wall National Nature Reserve, 4 kilometres west of Glastonbury, on the Somerset Levels in the valley of the River Brue in Somerset, England is managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. It is part of the Brue Valley Living Landscape conservation project. The project commenced in January 2009 and aims to restore, recreate and reconnect habitat. It aims to ensure that wildlife is enhanced and capable of sustaining itself in the face of climate change while guaranteeing farmers and other landowners can continue to use their land profitably. It is one of an increasing number of landscape scale conservation projects in the UK. This new wetland habitat has been established from out peat diggings and now consists of areas of reedbed, wet scrub, open water and peripheral grassland and woodland. Many bird species live on or visit the site including the Bearded Tit, Bittern, Cettis warbler, Hobby and Starling.

Rodney Stoke SSSI

Rodney Stoke is a 69.6 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, just north of the village of Rodney Stoke in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, notified in 1957. Part of the site is a national nature reserve and part a Nature Conservation Review Woodland site. This site supports a mosaic of ancient semi-natural broadleaved woodland, scrub and species-rich unimproved grassland. Rodney Stoke occupies steep south west facing slopes of the Mendip Hills. The underlying rock types belong to the Dolomitic Conglomerate facies of the Triassic, and to the Carboniferous Limestone series. The latter are restricted to the woodlands Big Stoke and Little Stoke, which along with Calves Plot Wood are ancient woodland sites. Big Stoke and Little Stoke were almost entirely clear-felled during World War I. Two nationally rare plants occur at Rodney Stoke: Purple Gromwell and the endemic Whitebeam . The site supports a diverse fauna. Badgers are common and two or three setts are occupied each year. Noctule bats and Pipistrelle bats roost in Big Stoke. Breeding birds include Buzzard and Spotted Flycatcher . Small enclosures and tall hedges provide sheltered conditions that are ideal for many species of invertebrate. Butterflies are well represented with Marbled White, Purple Hairstreak, Brown Argus and Grayling .

Westhay Moor

Westhay Moor is a 513.7-hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest 2.5 kilometres north-east of Westhay village and 4 kilometres from Wedmore in Somerset, England, notified in 1971. Westhay Moor is also notified as part of the Somerset Levels and Moors Special Protection Area under the EU Birds Directive and as a Ramsar Site, and a National Nature Reserve. The low lying swampy area of Westhay Moor has had peat laid down over older rocks for the last 10,000 years. The Neolithic people lived on the areas of slightly higher ground but exploited the reed beds for materials and built wooden trackways to cross the raised bog. Peat extraction on the Somerset Levels has occurred since the area was first drained by the Romans. Measures to improve the drainage were carried out in the Middle Ages largely by Glastonbury Abbey. In the 17th and 18th centuries further drainage work was undertaken including digging a series of rhynes, or ditches and larger drainage canals. Peat extraction peaked in the 1960s but has since declined. The geology of the moor and prolonged peat extraction has provided a unique environment which provides a habitat for a range of flora and fauna. Much of the nature reserve managed by the Somerset Wildlife Trust is based around abandoned peatworkings which have now become flooded. It is particularly noted for the millions of starlings which congregate at the site.

Orchardleigh Lake

Orchardleigh Lake is an 11.23-hectare artificial lake in the grounds of the Orchardleigh Estate, just north of Frome, Somerset, England. It was formed by damming a tributary of the River Frome. Today, the lake is used for angling, and also birdwatching. There is a small island towards the western side of lake where St Marys Church can be found. It was built in the 13th century, and underwent extensive renovation by Sir George Gilbert Scott, for the Rev. W. A. Duckworth, in 1878. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building. Its precise location is 51°15′28.36″N 2°19′33.28″W. Weddings are often performed at the church, which has capacity for 120 guests. It is linked from the mainland via a footbridge, and a public footpath runs nearby over another bridge across the lake. Note that there are actually two lakes at Orchardleigh: the small lake overlooked by the island church, and a much larger one situated approximately 150 metres away through a wooded area to the East which has a stone-built boathouse.

Fairy Cave Quarry

Fairy Cave Quarry is between Stoke St Michael and Oakhill in the limestone of the Mendip Hills, in Somerset, England. Quarrying was first started on the site in the early 1920s. In 1963 the quarry was acquired by Hobbs Ltd., and production on a much larger scale began. Excavations cut back into the hillside above St Dunstan's Well Rising, a Bristol Water abstraction point ; various caves were intercepted. The quarry ceased production in 1977. The caves in Fairy Cave Quarry include: Balch Cave Conning Tower Cave Fairy Cave Fernhill Cave Hillier's Cave Hillwithy Cave Shatter Cave W/L Cave Withyhill Cave The caves in the quarry were formed by water from an unknown source. Withybrook Slocker is an active swallet to the south of the quarry and although the water sinking here presently flows through the quarry caves the stream is misfit. Withybrook Slocker, however, gives access to the upstream continuation of the quarry caves and digging activities by the Cerberus Spelaeological Society will hopefully lead to the discovery of the original source of the system. The quarry has also been used extensively for climbing, with 136 named routes. Although this was previously without permission of the landowners, in July 2010 access for climbers was agreed.

Pen Hill

Pen Hill forms part of the Mendip Hills plateau in Somerset, England. The hill is located in St Cuthbert Out civil parish in Mendip district. The name Pen is believed to be Celtic for hill or tor. It gives its name to one of the four periclines which underlay the geology of the hills. The summit is 305 metres above sea level and is marked by an Ordnance Survey trig point. It is the second highest point on the Mendip Hills. Pen Hill is home to the Mendip TV Mast which is 281 metres high. On the ground Pen Hill provides spectacular views in all directions, particularly to the south, with excellent views down to the City of Wells and Wells Cathedral distant). On clear day it is often possible to see across Somerset to the Blackdown Hills, Quantock Hills and Brendon Hills. There are ancient remains on the hill, in the form of a neolithic Long barrow, which has been listed as Scheduled Ancient Monument, and a post medieval pillow mound thought to have been built specifically for rabbit breeding.

Draycott Sleights

Draycott Sleights is a 61.95 hectares biological Site of Special Scientific Interest at Draycott in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, notified in 1987. The Somerset Wildlife Trust reserve lies 3.5 km south east of Cheddar. It includes Draycott Sleights, 40.4 hectares, and Draycott Housegrounds, 10.21 hectares . Draycott Sleights is part of the Draycott Sleights Site of Special Scientific Interest, Draycott Housegrounds is a County Wildlife Site. The entire reserve is within the Mendips Scarp Prime Biodiversity Area and Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty . Draycott Sleights supports extensive areas of traditionally managed species-rich unimproved calcareous grassland. Additional interest lies in a rich invertebrate fauna. The site is situated on steep south-west facing slopes of the Mendip Hills and ranges in altitude from 90 m to 270 m . 165 species of flowering plant have been recorded. The varied topography together with the widespread scrub provide a number of locations with ideal conditions for invertebrates supporting a rich butterfly fauna typical of unimproved calcareous grassland. 32 species of resident breeding butterfly have been recorded to date. The occurrence of Adonis Blue, Silver-studded Blue and Small Blue is of particular interest. Two nationally scarce species of fly, Symphoromyia immaculata and Bombylius canescens and one nationally scarce species of ant, Myrmica schencki have been recorded for this site.

Street Heath

Street Heath is a 12.5 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest 4 km west of Glastonbury in Somerset, notified in 1966. It next to the Glastonbury Canal and Ham Wall nature reserve. Street Heath has itself been designated as a Local Nature Reserve. Street Heath is a Nature reserve, managed by Somerset Wildlife Trust, which has outstanding examples of communities that were once common on the Somerset Levels. It possesses a vegetation consisting of wet and dry heath, species-rich bog and carr woodland, with transitions between all these habitats. Rare ferns present include Marsh Fern and Royal Fern . Old peat workings and rhynes have a wetland community which includes Bulrush, Yellow Flag Iris, Cyperus-like Sedge and Lesser Bur-reed . Insects recorded include 33 species of butterflies, 200 moths and 12 grasshoppers and crickets, with several notable rarities. Birds breeding in the carr woodland include the local Willow Tit
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