• 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 and yellow archangel, and ferns such 6 6 as scaly male fern, hart’s tongue (see The lifecycle of the Wild•Walk at East HarptreeWoods EAST HARPTREE overleaf) and broad buckler fern as well badger as many moss and fungus species. WOODS & COMBE: A wild walk in this area is an • Badgers use a phenomenon known opportunity to enjoy the meeting of two as delayed implantation to ensure contrasting but equally interesting wildlife that whatever time of year the Where ancient forest meets young habitats and to appreciate the contrast female is fertilised, birth is delayed between young coniferous plantation and until the following February (or woodland old ash, oak and hazel woodlands. thereabouts) so that the cubs have the best chance of survival. Actual Tracking the secretive development in the womb is only 7 ost coniferous woodlands in Britain to a greater diversity of ground flora. badger weeks Mhave been planted for forestry Among conifers only the Scots pine, • Commonly, there are 2 to 4 cubs in purposes – as a crop which will one day yew and juniper are considered native each litter be harvested as timber. Because conifers to Britain, and most of our conifer • The cubs do not open their eyes or can grow up to six times faster than plantations are made up of commercially- gain their milk teeth until they are six broadleaved trees, conifer plantations useful introduced species such as weeks old produce much higher yields of timber the Douglas fir and the sitka spruce. than slower-growing broadleaf woodlands. Like most conifers these species are • Fewer than half the cubs born will Conifer timber is known as softwood evergreen, so they do not shed their survive to adulthood and is used for a huge range of needles in winter. • Cubs do not leave the sett until they products, from paper to furniture. East Harptree Woods is a relatively are about 8 weeks old Characteristically, conifer plantations new conifer plantation which has been • Once they leave the set they can tend to be planted at high density, which designed and managed with wildlife in hunt for food and no longer rely on reduces the amount of light reaching the mind. It has a wide ride to link areas the sow’s milk for nourishment WildWalk at East HarptreeWoods • woodland floor. Broadleaf woods usually of natural vegetation, such as heath • Though mortality in the first two allow far more light through, which leads and grassland. Once the area was years is very high, those that do important for lead and zinc mining, and Chris Newton survive may live to be as old as 10 the undulating terrain, known as ‘gruffy Badger (Meles meles) years or more. ground’, indicates old pits and spoil heaps. The badger’s short but powerful limbs Much of the ore was processed and and strong claws, small head and eyes, reptiles and birds are welcome additions smelted at this site and you can see the short thick neck and wedge-shaped body to the diet when available, as are bee and restored Smitham Chimney today. make it perfectly adapted to underground wasp larvae, beetles, berries, cereals, nuts, In front of the chimney there is grassland, living. The word ‘badger’ is believed to seeds and fungi. heath and a pond where dragonflies flit in come from the French word ‘bêcheur’, Secretive and nocturnal as badgers are the summer months. meaning digger. (particularly where disturbed by man), the Connected to the north-eastern end Badgers live in social groups called signs of their presence are easy enough of the woods is a narrow gorge with clans, each roaming over a home range to spot if you know what to look for. a small stream running down. This which is large and varied enough to They are creatures of habit, relying on is Harptree Combe, a Site of Special provide a reliable food supply.