Hills And Levels

With dramatic landscapes and ancient sites, cider farms and timewarp villages, a tour of rural Somerset is a delight

- Keith Drew

Ensconced between Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Dorset and Devon, Somerset is rural Britain at its bucolic best, a rolling countryside of apple-laden orchards and elegant stately homes. This is a county famous for its churches and its cheese. A county whose hills and marshlands are steeped in legend. And whose name, derived from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning Land of the Summer People, reflects a pastoral past that is still very much in evidence today. So where best to begin exploring this idyllic landscape? In a city, actually, and a UNESCO World Heritage-listed one at that.

“Oh! Who can ever be tired of Bath?” asks Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. The protagonist of Jane Austen’s first novel, set in the city in which she lived, was onto something. This is one of England’s most beautiful urban spaces, with an architectural showstopper at almost every turn: resplendent Bath Abbey, Italianate Pulteney Bridge, the grand sweep of Georgian houses that makes up the Royal Crescent.

For over 2000 years, visitors have been drawn to the Roman Baths that give the city its name. Watch the steam curling off the deep-green Great Bath before taking the mineral-rich waters at the Spa Fountain – a sip can supposedly cure everything from arthritis to gout. You can put these claims to the test even further at the cutting-edge Thermae Bath Spa; head up to the open-air rooftop pool for soothing views across the city.

From Bath, it’s 25 miles up over the Mendip Hills to Cheddar Gorge, by far your longest stretch between stops but worth it for this jaw-dropping introduction to Somerset’s more rugged scenery. Just driving through the gorge, the largest in Britain, is breath-taking, its craggy limestone cliffs towering 500 feet over the snaking road.