50 Wild Walks in the Mendips (Blagdon Lake)

• Explore the Mendip Hills – an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty • Eight themed walks, each with fascinating background information • Clear, easy-to-follow route descriptions for each Wild Walk • Additional information on wildlife and wild flowers • Includes a Wild Food Calendar: how and 8 Wild Walks where to safely pick wild produce throughout the year www.mendiphillsaonb.org.uk Walking the Mendip Hills Key to maps in safety ll eight Wild Walks in this book Walking is great exercise for people of Aare suitable for any reasonably all ages and the perfect way to keep fit fit person, but the less experienced and healthy. For the occasional walker walker should try the easier routes first. it’s not really necessary to spend a Walking in safety Following the route directions should be fortune on the basic equipment, although straightforward, but you will find that the a sturdy pair of comfortable boots or relevant Ordnance Survey map is a useful shoes and a reliable waterproof jacket is addition to the information presented a must. Experienced walkers wear layers here. Carry a compass as well – just in of clothing which can be put on or taken case you lose your way. off as conditions change. The secret Each walk has been carefully is to maintain a comfortable and even researched to minimise any danger to temperature throughout your walk. walkers but it should be stressed that Carry a small rucksack with a spare no walk is completey risk-free. Walking top, hat, gloves and waterproofs and it’s a in the countryside will always require an really good idea to take a drink and some element of common sense and judgement food with you to keep liquid and energy to ensure that it is as safe and pleasurable levels up. Walking is exercise, after all, and an activity as possible. you’ll need to refuel as necessary. A few words to the wise… • Take particular care on upland areas summer months it is advisable to wear where the consequences of a slip or a hat and carry spare water. fall could be serious. • Carry a torch and a fully-charged • Several of the Wild Walk routes use mobile phone in case of emergencies. or cross busy roads. Please be aware • Respect the working life of the that even country lanes and countryside and follow the Country unclassified roads are not traffic-free. Code at all times. • Take particular care around farm • Protect plants and animals and always machinery or livestock, especially if take your litter home with you. you are walking with children or dogs. • Be careful not to disturb ruins and • Our weather is very unreliable and historic sites. conditions can change very quickly. Check the forecast before you set out • Fires can be as devastating to wildlife and ensure that you are equipped with and natural habitats so be careful not suitable warm, waterproof clothing to drop a match or smouldering and appropriate footwear. In the cigarette. WALKING IN SAFETY 8 Wild Walks A fully illustrated guide to eight Wild Walks in the Mendip Hills – an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – including a fascinating Wild Food Calendar Contents Exploring the wild and Introduction to the Mendip Hills Contents Introduction to the Mendip Hills 3 ancient beauty of the Key to Wild Walks 4 Mendip Hills Black Down 6 hrough their long history, the familiar range of bare peaks, green-clad Blagdon Lake 10 TMendip Hills have been all things to slopes and undulating ridges we see all people: a place to live and raise our today. Bleadon Hill 14 families, a place to farm crops or hunt for Spend a hot summer afternoon on food, a place to worship or a fortress to Black Down, marvel at the autumn Chew Valley Lake 18 defend, a place to dig out a living through colours across Chew Valley Lake, have mining and quarrying, a place to enjoy your spirits stirred by the winter mist Draycott Sleights 22 our leisure time. in the Vale of Avalon when viewed from Each of these uses has left its own Deer Leap, and rejoice in the fresh spring East Harptree Woods & Combe 26 mark on the land. A visit to the Mendips greenery of the combes and gorges. is a journey through time – a chance to There is always something new, always King’s Wood 30 experience the remarkable variety of something remarkable. scenery this fascinating area has to offer Three Priddy Droves 34 throughout the seasons. This is a layered Valuing and protecting landscape, with modern agriculture our heritage overlying medieval field systems, with Wild Food Calendar 38 Roman towns and Saxon settlements Outstandingly beautiful, universally valued built above the ancient cave systems that – the Mendip Hills is a place of such Acknowledgements 40 gave shelter to early man. exceptional scenic quality that in 1972 it Look back further and you realise that was designated an Area of Outstanding this peaceful corner of England has been Natural Beauty. (AONB) This recognises made over hundreds of millions of years that the Mendips are one of England’s by unimaginable forces; forces that have finest lanscapes, an area treasured by repeatedly created rocks and destroyed everyone and deserving the special them again, moulding, squeezing, crushing, protection and management of the folding and grinding to leave us with the Mendip Hills AONB Service. 2 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 Key toWildWalks N 3 1 2 4 Key toWildWalks 6 Key to Wild Walks 1 Black Down 2 Blagdon Lake 3 Bleadon Hill 7 4 Chew Valley Lake 5 Draycott Sleights 6 East Harptree Woods & Combe 7 Kings Wood 5 8 Three Priddy Droves AONB Built Up Areas Woodland Visitor Area 8 4 KEY TO WILD WALKS KEY TO WILD WALKS 5 2 2 Devil’s darning needles The colourful life Wild•Walk at Blagdon Lake BLAGDON LAKE: That’s just one of the old country names for dragonflies and damselflies. The two story of the ruddy Man-made, adopted by nature sub-orders are distinguished by the way darter they hold their wings – those of the • The nymphs use plant stems to crawl dragonflies (anisoptera) are held flat like up out of the water in the early f it weren’t for the Victorian an aeroplane when perching,while the morning. The skin then splits to more delicate damselflies (zygoptera) Idam that runs for a third of a allow the fully-formed adult to bring their wings together. mile along its western end, you emerge Several species are common at Blagdon could be forgiven for thinking • Mature males occupy perches near Blagdon was a natural lake. In in summer including two of the largest breeding sites and defend small fact this peaceful 440-acre dragonflies, the spectacular Southern teritories. They will try another reservoir has been there so Hawker (Aeshna cyanea) and the even long – the dam was built back larger golden-brown emperor dragonfly perch if they fail to spot a female in 1891 – that it has long since (Anax imperator). blended into the landscape of the The ruddy darter dragonfly northern flanks of the Mendips. (Sympetrum sanguineum) is locally Blagdon takes its name from common in the South of England and nearby Black Down. The work widespread at Blagdon (this one was of building the massive dam photographed in Rugmoor Bay on the WildWalk at Blagdon Lake • took eight years – the larger Glendell/NaturalPaul England lake's north shore). The mature male materials had to be brought has a blood red face and abdomen, with in on the Wrington Vale Light a marked constriction or ‘waist’ shape Railway Company’s branch line. to the abdomen. Immature males and A large Gothic-style building mature females have orange-brown was constructed to house four abdomens, while both have black legs. massive steam-powered beam They grow up to 35mm in length when engines to pump the water. They mature and fly from mid-June to October. have now been replaced by electric motors, but two of the Chris Newton • Females are intercepted as they original engines were preserved and can moths, frequent them in summer. The approach, and the two mate on still be seen at Blagdon pumping station. trout which have been stocked by the nearby vegetation A rich variety of wildlife soon water company for anglers since the lake • The female lays her eggs while still colonised Blagdon and in more recent was created (predominantly the faster- in tandem with the male. She dips times it has been designated a Site of growing rainbow trout these days) have her abdomen in open water, on Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Its a rich variety of food to choose from vegetation or in mud to deposit the meandering 7 miles (11km) of shoreline – particularly the larvae of insects such eggs (damselflies may crawl deep into alternates sheltered bays, reedbeds, carr as damselflies, dragonflies, water beetles, the water to lay their eggs) woodland and grassland. Reed sweet- midges and sedge flies (caddis flies). • In high summer the eggs hatch grass, reed canary-grass and common There are also sticklebacks, eels, perch within a few days, but if they are laid reed populate the shoreline and there are and gudgeon. late in the season they will not hatch aquatic plants such as flowering rush and The lake’s rich supply of food ensures until the following spring shoreweed. a thriving population of waterfowl. They • The nymph feeds on the bottom Species-rich meadows border parts include coot, moorhen, tufted duck, for a year, hiding among the roots of the north shore and these are home teal, wigeon, mallard, great crested and of water plants and gradually growing to saw-wort, wild carrot and pepper little grebe, reed bunting, sedge warbler, bigger.

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