West Country Wanderings - Cheddar and Wells

For my birthday this year, I did a little road trip...

Glastonbury

After stopping in Bristol to attend my sister's baby shower, I carried onto the YHA at Cheddar.  I like these hostels partly for their super cheap dorm rooms, but also because it's a more sociable way to travel solo.  There's always other people around and it's pretty easy to share stories about how you gt here.  I ended up rooming with a German motorcyclist doing her own south-west tour, and then the following night a retired 70 years old o, with her husband, was hostel-hopping by bike.  No mean feat given the hill round here!

Cheddar is right on the edge of the Mendip Hills, overlooking the formerly flooded Somerset Levels.  On my first day I popped along to Glastonbury, to take in the sights and climb the Tor.  You've got the climb the Tor!

 

The Tor itself used to be a kind of island, rising above the marshes and winter flood plains of the Levels the same way Ely Cathedral does in the East.  It doesn't take long to walk up to St Michael's Tower on top, but it's a steep climb.  You can see the terraces still cut into the hillside where people used to farm.



On this beautifully warm day, the views were worth it.

Glastonbury and the Abbey

Walking back through the town. 

The Abbey itself is a weird stacking game of multiple different myths and beliefs and historical events, cobbled together by the passage of time.  I got the guided tour (always get the tour!) and 'Goodwife Molly' told us all about it.

Supposedly Joseph of Arimathea (the guy who gave a tomb to bury Jesus in) came here in roughly 63AD, and stayed after his walking stick planted itself and grew into a thorn tree . There really is a Mediterranean thorn tree on a nearby hill, although the species only lives about 80 years so they take a cutting and grow a new one every so often.  So that's why there's a church here, which grew into a prominent abbey over the centuries.

Then in 1191 two graves were discovered, containing a couple with some miraculous characteristics about them, and a metal cross labelling them as... King Arthur and Queen Guinevere of Britain!  Yup.  Coincidentally, Arthurian legend was a big hit at the time, and the Abbey needed a refreshed cash inflow after a fire, but surely these are no barrier to believing that this was the real Arthur, right.  Eventually the graves were moved to under the high altar, in a ceremony attended by King Edward I.

The abbey's fortunes returned, until it became the second wealthiest abbey in England (after Westminster).  Unfortunately that put in right in the sightline of King Henry VIII in the 1500s, when he was sacking the monasteries as part of his departure from the catholic church.  The roof of the abbery was stripped for it' valuable lead, and from there it crumbled into some ruined remains that are nonetheless impressive!

Goodwife Molly gives us the mythic lowdown

View of Glastonbury Tor from the Abbey grounds.
In the winter, when the trees are bare, you can see the hill where the original Glastonbury thorn still stands.

As well as the history and mythology piled onto the place, they'd set up a small but authentically styled kitchen garden, which I was hugely envious of.  I'm trying to grow more food at home and I ended up noting down everything they had in there as research for what I might add to my garden next year.

Glastonbury is a strange little place.  There's such a mishmash of ideas going on here.  Of course some of it is bigged up for the tourists, but just in one street you can find Christian stuff, Wiccan stuff, Buddhist stuff, assorted New Age stuff, Viking stuff, Herbology stuff, and really charismatic taxidermied animals.

Wells 

This little town is known mainly for two things; the massive medieval cathedral with it's beautiful and unusual scissor arch... and for being the filming location for Hot Fuzz.  So you walk past something beautiful and historic... and then remember you've seen a car chase there!
Since it was Sunday, I timed my visit to take part in the service.  As I was arriving, they were ringing the bells.

Cheddar Gorge

This is a massive chasm in the limestone cliff of the Mendip Hills, and you can walk up it for the fantastic views at the top.  What they want you to do it go anticlockwise, buy a ticket, and go up the cement steps of Jacobs Ladder.  But if you go clockwise you can do the whole thing in reverse for free, and to be honest I think I liked this direction better.  You do the hard climb first, and the amazing views across the Levels are saved til last.

Facing the gorge, bear left along a marked public footpath, then sharply right through a gate marked 'permissive path' and VERY steeply uphill through a field and into a wood.  It's a tough climb, but then that's the hardest part done and you're on top of the gorge.

On the furthest left you can see southeast back to Glastonbury Tor, and to the right , northwest, you can see the Severn Estuary.

On the left, Glastonbury Tor

Right towards the estuary

I like the view so much that I went up again the next morning, but only walked the second half.  You can drive into the gorge, which takes you uphill and eventually out into fields on the other side.  There are a lot of pullover spots for cars, some charged but others not (and what was funny was watching the local youths turn up there in the evening with expensive cars, revving their engines.  The police were around, and it's a nice spot for it, but the contrast of aesthetics was amusing).  

Anyway, there's a spot I remembered from the previous days walk, where the track comes downhill into the gorge, halfway through the walk, and crosses the road.  it was easy to find, as it was swimming in wild garlic.  So I parked up there, and climbed up one more time to sit on the clifftop and watch the world for a little while before I left.