Tucking Mill Reservoir Visitor information
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To Combe Down y a
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s i Toilets for disabled visitors only – accessible with RADAR key.
Horsecombe Vale D An emergency telephone is available in the toilet facilities.
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i V Lake Priory Wood (disabled fishing only)
Please note that car parking is only available for disabled anglers. There is no car parking on site or parking facilities nearby for visitors. To Midford
On the following pages, find out more about:
Tucking Mill Tucking Mill Beefly Bats Horsecombe Site Industrial Geology Wood Lake meadows Vale history history
Tucking Mill is located approximately two miles south of Bath city centre, between the villages of Monkton Combe and Midford. Please note that car parking is only available for disabled anglers. There is no car parking on site or parking facilities nearby for visitors. This site can only be accessed by footpaths and cycle paths that run nearby. Public footpaths Code of conduct The site is close to the Limestone Link national trail and local For the safety and enjoyment of all, please follow our code footpaths linking the site to Bath, Monkton Combe, Midford and of conduct: Horsecombe Vale • remember that the site is a public water supply • no dogs are allowed except on a public right of way and Ordnance survey maps then on a leash Landranger 172, Bristol & Bath • please keep to public areas or • take care on sections of path which are steep, have Explorer 155, Bristol & Bath. obstructions or may not have level surfaces • Please keep to the cycle path and do not cycle on site Cycle paths • swimming is not allowed, do not enter the water unless Just off National Cycle Route 24 (the Colliers Way) from Dundas fishing and remember the water is deep in places Aqueduct (Kennet and Avon Canal) towards Frome. The Two • please keep children safe at all times Tunnels Cyclepath from central Bath will also cross the site once • respect the wildlife and do not pick wildflowers completed. • fishing is for disabled anglers only and anglers must have a permit and read the rules of the fishery before fishing. Tucking Mill Reservoir Nature
Tucking Mill Wood which are considered to be of conservation significance – a remarkably high number for such a small site. This includes a Tucking Mill Wood is nationally significant population of a beefly, Villa cingulata , which dominated by mature was thought to have become extinct in Britain in 1938. This trees such as ash, beefly has striking pale bands on the abdomen, and is known ffield maple, wych elm from only one other site in Somerset and has only recently been and some hazel, spindle recorded in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. To prevent and hawthorn. During May a rich disturbance and damage to these species, there is no public ground flora is in flower and access to these fields. includes dogs mercury, bluebell, ramsons (wild garlic) and yellow Bats archangel. The footpath through Tucking Mill is located the wood follows the line of the within an area of former tramway built by William national and European Smith to carry stone from his quarry at importance for bat Kingham Wood down to his saw mill. species. Surveys have Stone sleepers (square stone blocks recorded eight bat species using the drilled to hold a pin which secured the site including common pipistrelle, track) can still be seen in places. In the soprano pipistrelle, Daubenton’s, Brown long eared bat wood two quarries expose Inferior noctule, serotine, long-eared, greater Oolite limestones and the Midford Sands and lesser horseshoe bats. While Wild garlic beneath. The first quarry is the best woodland forms a large portion of the example of limestone rich in fossils and Greater horseshoe bat site, the bats are especially interested in its horizontal layers are clearly displayed. the lake, which forms a key feeding area for several species, but particularly the Tucking Mill Lake Daubenton’s. Anglers share the lake with The Daubenton’s is a medium sized bat kingfishers, moorhen, coot, grey (between 4.5 and 5.5cm long) which heron and little grebe and it takes insects from close to water has developed a natural fringe surfaces using either their large feet or of vegetation of common reed, tail membrane as a scoop. Flying at about pendulous sedge, horsetail, coltsfoot, yellow 15mph within a few centimetres of the iris and hemlock water dropwort. On a water surface they are often reminiscent of a small hovercraft summer's day, dragonflies can be see around and were historically known as the water bat. In summer, the lake guarding their territory and looking Grey heron Daubenton’s form colonies in underground sites (such as caves, for a mate. mines or cellars) or in holes in trees near to water before moving towards winter hibernation in October in caves, mines Beefly meadows or other underground sites. Moving out of the woodlands Horsecombe Vale and walking up the steep slope to the former railway Horsecombe Vale and Priory line will eventually bring you Woods have few very tall past meadows of important trees; instead they are limestone grassland. These fields have not dominated by hazel and were been subject to agricultural improvement once traditionally managed as a by past farmers and so plants formerly hazel coppice. The stems of this small tree widespread have continued to flourish. In Pyramidal orchid were cut to ground level regularly every total, more than 140 species of flowering seven to 15 years to provide poles for plants have been recorded in the fields, including species such as fencing, tool handles and firewood. devil's-bit scabious, common Ancient woodland indicator species such rockrose, wild thyme, quaking as wood anemone, sweet woodruff and grass, marjoram, pyramidal twayblade also grow here. You may see orchid, birds-foot trefoil, Bath asparagus (also known as spiked star common spotted orchid and of Bethlehem) which is a nationally scarce common twayblade. These plant often found around the environs of Bath asparagus plants support a good range of Bath. Related to the bluebell, it has long Bird’s foot trefoil butterflies in the summer, strap like leaves that emerge in the spring including the grizzled skipper. with greenish white star-shaped flowers on tall flower spikes that can reach one metre high. The meadows are particularly important for insects and other invertebrates. 413 species have been identified at the site, 43 of Tucking Mill Reservoir Industrial history
Industrial history
This quiet for transfer of water to rural location Combe Down. Bath belies a past Corporation ran the history of facility from 1954 until industrial use which has the formation of the shaped the valley. Wessex Water Authority in 1974 and it has Tucking Mill is named after subsequently been run by a process in the woollen Wessex Water since industry known as tucking 1991. Old Tucking Mill water works or fulling in which woven cloth was cleaned and In addition to the spring thickened. Pairs of massive sources, the treatment works is also able to abstract water 17th century ‘tucking or ‘fulling’ mill wooden blocks pounded from the River Avon in the event of a severe drought, before it Fuller’s Earth (a clay like is treated and transferred into the water distribution network. material) into the wool to produce a heavy felted cloth. This was done in a mill building which used to stand beside Tucking Mill cottage, but which had fallen into disuse by 1798 when the site was bought by William Smith. Following his purchase 19th century fuller’s earth works of the site, Smith created the original pond and surrounding woodland landscape and reconstructed the mill. This was put to Old Tucking Mill drying sheds use as a saw mill to cut stone into slabs Tucking Mill once enjoyed a closer connection to the for paving or roofing, surrounding world. Striding across the heart of the site, the primarily for the eight arch viaduct which dominates the valley once carried the London market. Smith railway line from Bath Green Park Station to Bournemouth – brought together the former Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. The line north stone from a quarry from Evercreech Junction to Bath opened in 1874 and carried he owned nearby in generations of holiday-makers from the Midlands to the south Kingham Field with a tramway to transport the stone to the mill coast before closure in 1966. and then onwards using the former canal which used to flow in On the north side of front of the mill and cottage. the lake lies the line Unfortunately, the scheme failed, leaving Smith heavily in debt of the former and, following 10 weeks in a debtor’s prison, eventually forced tramway built by him to sell the cottage and leave the site. William Smith to carry stone from his The saw mill, together with settling ponds and a drying shed, quarry at Kingham was eventually used for processing Fuller’s Earth, which was Wood down to the mined at the top of Horsecombe Vale, taken to the former mill Somersetshire Coal for processing and then carried by rail for use in industry from Canal. The quarry Midford Station goods yard. The remains of the mill were and tramway were demolished in 1979 to allow the construction of the present constructed around lake. The viaduct 1811/1812, but were Tucking Mill’s out of use by 1820. involvement with The present public footpath closely follows the line of the water supply dates tramway and stone sleepers (square stone blocks drilled to hold back to the a pin which secured the track) can still be seen. Victorian period. As if road and rail were not enough, the filled in course of the Water from the Somersetshire Coal Canal runs alongside the lane at the spring sources has entrance gates to the site. The canal was built to allow coal from been collected since the Mendip coalfields to reach Bath and Wiltshire and its 1881, originally by a construction was partially supervised by William Smith who waterwheel pump The original Tucking Mill used it to transport products from the works at Tucking Mill. Tucking Mill Reservoir Geology
William Smith and the birth of geology
In 1798 the site was bought principles on which the modern science by William Smith, who is of geology is based. He realised that often known as the father of fossils can be used to identify rock layers English geology as he and that there was a regular order in the collated the geological history layers of rock which could be recognised of England and Wales into a single record. at different places miles apart – these In 1793 William Smith was taken on by observations were published in the Table the Somersetshire Coal Canal Company of Strata near Bath and in 1799 he to survey and level the route of the canal coloured in the geological features on a and by 1795, Smith was helping to map of the area, creating one of the supervise the excavation of the canal. In oldest geological maps in existence. 1798, Smith bought a “small but beautiful estate” at Tucking Mill which was to be In later years, Smith was able to travel his home for the next 20 years. the country gathering observations culminating in his famous geological map During this period, the observations of England and Wales published in 1815. Smith made in the coal mines, quarries In 1810 he even restored the flow of William Smith and canal diggings, together with the water in the hot springs which fed the fossils he collected from excavations, led baths and Pump Room in Bath. him to propose the fundamental
Exploring the geology of Tucking Mill
Several geological exposures the Midford Sands beneath. In the first are present around the site Coral imprints in Tucking Mill Wood quarry the limestone is rich in fossils and where you can view the its horizontal layers are clearly displayed. rock layers which are part of However, all the exposures in Tucking Mill the site’s importance. If you Wood show some disturbance. This is follow the steps up from the lake to the due to mass movement of the rocks former railway cutting, you will find a downhill as the frozen ground became cleared exposure which reveals unstable when the top surface melted horizontal beds of limestone resting on during the summer months of the soft sandstone. The loosely cemented permafrost conditions of the last ice age. grains of silt and sand of the Midford Even today the area remains important Sands layer underlie the hard Inferior for geology – Tucking Mill is the type Oolite limestone which contains many locality for the Midford Sands while fossils. In the lowest layers, thick shelled Horsecombe Vale is also the type locality bi-valves (especially Trigonia , found today towards a distant past, 170 million years for the Fullers’ Earth. The type locality is in the Pacific) can be seen together with ago, when each rock layer must have a location chosen to be a baseline ammonites, brachiopods and gastropod been the floor of a coral sea. standard against which other areas with shells. The upper layers of limestone the same rock units can be compared, contain quite different fossils, including In Tucking Mill Wood two quarries nationally and internationally. mounds of fossilised coral and point expose Inferior Oolite limestones and
Exposure east of steps, Midford Sands Trigonia fossil in Oolitic limestone Former quarry - Tucking Mill Wood Lower Oolitic imestone