Escape to the Somerset Levels

Steeped in history and legend, these ancient wetlands offer serenity and spectacular beauty. This is a traditional farming landscape famed for its withy beds, where flora and fauna flourish on a patchwork of water

  Photo: Visit BritainFew British landscapes come alive in winter. Our mountains are bleak and austere and our fields are a drab and leafless shadow of their summer selves. But the Somerset Levels have a midwinter makeover that fills the skies with flickering life and draws great bedsheets of water over the land.

Until a thousand years ago, the whole area from Yeovil to the Bristol Channel was a permanent infiltration of sea. The local high tides – the second highest in the world – surged at will across these flats, creating salt marshes and lakes.

During this time, the inhabitants were lake dwellers, catching eels from dug-out canoes, living in villages raised on platforms and making summer tracks from wood and willow to lay through the marshes.
Then, in the 13th century, the land started to be reclaimed, funded by the powerful abbeys at Glastonbury, Muchelney and Athelney. Sea walls were built, drainage ditches dug and primitive windpumps began work among a tessellation of rhynes (ditches) and droves (tracks), broken by marching rows of pollarded willows, interrupted occasionally by clusters of houses on rising swirls of land – the basic skeleton of the Levels today.

The distant tide still sends rapiers right upriver as far as Langport, but these days its power is contained by the Drainage Boards, whose personnel stomp around in wellies opening and closing sluices. Drainage was originally intended for the benefit of farmers, but that has changed, particularly since the Levels were designated an Environmentally Sensitive Area in 1987, and financial incentives have halted its slide into agricultural prairie.

These days, it seems, there’s more money in conservation than in farming. Landowners also face increasing pressure to let the water table rise, thereby improving the habitat for overwintering wetland birds. There’s even talk, ultimately, of relinquishing all flood control and letting parts of the Levels return to the marshland they used to be.

Where to go, what to see
The Levels incorporate 140,000 acres of floodplains of the rivers Axe, Brue,  Huntspill and Parrett and King’s Sedgemoor Drain. The most interesting section – where the traditional flatlands are bordered with lovely hamstone villages – is within a five-mile radius of Langport, once an important centre for river-borne trade but now struggling with through traffic.

Abbey Islands
Muchelney, a collection of ancient buildings on an island of raised ground, is where the spirit of the medieval Levels lives on. The once-powerful abbey that stood here fell dramatically into debt before the dissolution of the monasteries and only the foundations and the abbott’s house remain (open April to October; 01458 250664; www.english-heritage.org.uk/muchelney). But the church has a lovely painted ceiling and across the lane is the immaculate thatched medieval Priest’s House (open Sunday and Monday afternoons, 01458 253771). At high water, Muchelney becomes an island again, and locals relocate their cars on higher ground, reached by tractor.

Nothing remains of the abbey on the former island of Athelney, where a distracted King Alfred was supposed to have let the farmer’s wife’s cakes burn. More rewarding is Burrow Mump, an 80ft conical hill reminiscent of Glastonbury Tor and topped by a ruined church. This is a dramatic place to be in time of flood.

Arts and Crafts
Many artists have settled in the Levels. Among the most celebrated is John Leach, grandson of potter Bernard Leach, a jolly, shaggy Breughel-like figure, who has been fashioning his blushing pots at Muchelney Pottery (01458 250324; www.johnleachpottery.com) for over 40 years. “There’s a serenity here that attracts artists,” says Leach, who has a shop on site and regular open days.

In Somerton, the Somerset Guild of Craftsmen (01458 274653; www.somersetguild.co.uk) has a gallery, The Courtyard in Market Place, where the work of potters, embroiderers, wood turners and numerous other craftsmen is on display. For something more unusual, seek out guild member Michael Burton, silver- and goldsmith. The whiskery Burton (01935 826544), whose work has been described as “medieval in feel”, is splendidly eccentric, enthusiastic and highly skilled. He works only to commission so come armed with ideas.

Gardens
Two well-known gardens lie on the Levels’ southern fringe. Margery Fish created the concept of “cottage gardening” at the Grade-I listed East Lambrook Manor Gardens (open February to October; 01460 240328; www.eastlambrook.co.uk). They are semi-wild and pretty, with a wistful Bloomsbury atmosphere; it is no surprise to learn that Vita Sackville-West was one of her regular correspondents. By contrast, the gardens at Barrington Court (March to October; 01460 241938) are formal and well groomed, with a walled kitchen garden bursting with fruit and vegetables.

Local produce
In season, there’s farm-door produce available down almost every lane, but chief among them is the Burrow Hill Cider Farm (01460 240782; www.ciderbrandy.co.uk) at Kingsbury Episcopi, near Martock. The cider comes from 40 varieties of apple. The farm also sells cider brandy produced on site at its Somerset Distillery, which holds the only commercial cider-distilling licence in the country.

Heritage and industry

The two traditional industries of the area are willow growing and peat extraction. The village of Stoke St Gregory is at the centre of the withy beds. The Willows and Wetland Visitor Centre (01823 490249; www.englishwillowbaskets.co.uk) has a small museum and exhibition and offers tours of the willow-growing area.

The village is also home to English Hurdle (01823 698418; www.hurdle.co.uk), a company that turns out hurdles for embankments and garden use, including the living willow fence: erect it in your garden and it takes root and grows.

Peat extraction focuses around the more northerly Levels by the River Brue. This is also the venue for the Peat Moors Visitor Centre at Westhay (open March to October; 01458 860697), with its interpretation of the pre-drainage Levels. From the outside, the centre looks like a clutch of garden sheds, but the recreation of an Iron Age lake village, with marsh tracks and thatched roundhouses, is particularly atmospheric – especially at the end of October, when a wicker man is burnt at the festival of Samhain.

Hidden highlights
•  Get closer to the region’s wildlife in the hide at the RSPB’s reserve on West Sedgemoor (01458 252805; www.rspb.org.uk), off the A378 to the west of Curry Rivel. There is a large heronry, at its most lively in spring, and in winter tens of thousands of wildfowl inhabit the flooded plain. Alternatively, Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve (01458 860120), over by Westhay, gives a broad spectrum of flora and fauna. A mix of old orchid-rich meadows, pastures and restored peat workings, it is fast becoming a dynamic wetland area popular with birdwatchers. Marsh harriers and bitterns can be seen.
•  Additive-free baking at Martock’s Bakery Roy-Al (01935 826667) reflects the skills of three generations of the Legg family. Among their specialities are the fruity Somerset dough cake, traditional lardy cake and a wide variety of pasties.

Where to eat & drink
Barrington
•  Strode House Restaurant (01460 241244, National Trust) A seasonal lunch menu reflecting what is available in the large kitchen garden at Barrington Court. Try the Elizabethan-style savoury whitepot, a pudding of homemade bread, artichokes and local goat’s cheese.

Curry Rivel
•  The Olde Forge Inn (www.oldeforgeinn.co.uk 01458 251554) Restaurant with bar in a former 14th-century free house. Sunday carvery.

Hambridge
•  Brown and Forrest (01458 250875; www.smokedeel.co.uk) Restaurant at a family-run smokery. The succulent smoked eel is served on rye bread with fresh horseradish.

Kingsbury Episcopi
• Wyndham Arms (01935 823239; www.wyndhamarms.com) Fine 16th-century inn with flagstone floors, large communal wooden tables and a log fire for warming walkers’ toes. Homemade English cuisine.

Over Stratton
• New Farm Restaurant (www.newfarmrestaurant.co.uk 01460 240584) Tiny restaurant in a former hamstone barn. Jane Bond cooks and her husband, Crispin, serves it with the reverence you’d expect for fine cuisine. Innovative food made from local produce.

Pitney
•  The Halfway House (www.thehalfwayhouse.co.uk 01458 252513) Old-style country pub free from music and electronic games and popular with local artists. Wide selection of local beers (including real ale enthusiasts’ favourite Summer Lightning), daily newspapers, soup and hot-smoked delicacies, menu of homemade curries in the evening.

Where to stay
Beercrocombe
•  Frog Street Farm (01823 480430) Relaxed, hospitable and peaceful Somerset longhouse dating from 1436, down quiet lanes and about as far from stress as it is possible to be. Exuberant owner Veronica Cole cooks traditional English dinners using local produce, some from her own garden. Her husband Henry breeds racehorses. B&B from £35 single, £54 double.

Hatch Beauchamp
•  Farthings Hotel (01823 480664; www.farthingshotel.co.uk) Elegant Georgian country hotel with large rear garden. Generous, bright rooms, particularly the one with an internal spiral staircase to its own bathroom. B&B from £130 for a double room.

Isle Abbotts
• Pitts Cottage (Rural Retreats, 01386 701177; www.ruralretreats.co.uk) A handsome, renovated 15th-century longhouse situated on a Duchy of Cornwall dairy farm, in an unspoilt village. Self-catering, sleeps nine, from £1,083 a week.

Long Sutton
• Devonshire Arms Hotel (01458 241271; www.thedevonshirearms.com) A good nine-bedroom, wood and stone country inn with mullion windows overlooking the village green (part of the Old English Inns chain).

Muchelney
• Muchelney Ham Farm (01458 250737; www.muchelneyhamfarm.co.uk) Charming 17th-century honey-stone farmhouse in quiet setting, right on the Levels. Velvets, brocades, oak beams, a claw-footed bath and binoculars by the window for birdwatching.

Stoke St Gregory
• Holly Farm Cottages (01823 490828; www.holly-farm.com) Five two- and three-bedroom rental cottages converted from stone barns, run by friendly, local wheat-reed farmer Robert Hembrow. £310-£750 a week.

Don’t miss… Ham Hill
“From here you see it all, nose to tail, source to mouth, The whole history of Somerset, Wriggling like an eel”  (from “Ham Hill” by James Crowden)

Ham Hill casts its spell over the area, with its quarry stone responsible for many of the region’s finest houses. Earthwork ramparts are still visible from what was one of the largest Iron Age hillforts in Europe. Superb morning and evening views.

Don’t miss… willow sculpture
Willow men, willow dogs, willow ducks and geese... you can’t help but notice them as you travel the Levels. There’s been a surge in willow sculpture, much of it from the hand of Serena de la Hey (call 01823 698049 or visit www.serenadelahey.com), who has a studio at English Hurdle in Stoke St Gregory. Serena’s dogs (from £500) are perfect household pets: they don’t bark, beg at the table or leave muddy footprints.

General information
Somerset Visitor Centre (01934 750833) Sedgemoor services on the M5 South, north of Highbridge
Taunton Information Centre (01823 336344)
Yeovil Information Centre (01935 845946)

Useful websites
www.southsomerset.gov.uk
www.somerset.gov.uk
Langport’s Bow Bridge Cycles (01458 250350) rents out bikes at £10 per day. The shop (by the bridge over the Parrett) also doubles as a visitor information outlet, and has cycle route leaflets and maps.
The best map is OS Landranger 193, Taunton & Lyme Regis.

Background reading
'The Somerset Levels' by Robin and Romey Williams (Ex Libris). The flavour of the Levels is captured in 'In Time of Flood', poetry by James Crowden, photographs by George Wright (Parrett Trail Partnership).

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