Quantock Hills

The Quantock Hills rise west of Bridgwater in Somerset as a ridge of heathland, oak woods and old parkland. England’s first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, they stretch for about twenty-four kilometres from the Vale of Taunton in the south to the coast at Kilve and West Quantoxhead. From the highest point, Wills Neck, walkers can see Glastonbury Tor, the Mendips, Wales as far as the Gower Peninsula, Exmoor and the Blackdown Hills. The hills mark the boundary between the old Saxon kingdom of Wessex and the lands of the Britons, and a battle was fought here in that time. Bronze Age burial mounds, Iron Age forts and Roman silver coins found at West Bagborough show the land has been shaped by people for thousands of years. The hills are shaped by layers of Devonian sandstone, slates and limestones laid down under an ancient sea. At West Quantoxhead quarry the older Hangman Grits are exposed in the rock face, while further south newer Devonian rocks form the Ilfracombe beds and Morte Slates. Along the coast near Watchet the cliffs contain veins of gypsum once mined on the foreshore. At Kilve the cliffs show compressed shale and Lias beds rich in fossils, and a red-brick retort house built in 1924 remains from an early attempt to extract oil. Blue Anchor’s cliffs gave their name to the colour Watchet Blue, and the village has the only surviving updraught brick kiln in Somerset. The hills support heathland of gorse, heather and bracken with plantations of conifer on the summits. Deep combes on the north-eastern slopes hold oak woods and small bogs with specialist plants such as bog pimpernel. The western scarp slopes carry steep pastures, parkland and woods of sessile oak, ash and wych elm. Streams and reservoirs like Hawkridge and Ashford provide habitats for a range of wildlife. The varied soils and mild, wet climate encourage a rich mix of plants and animals across the hills.