The best hiking routes in Mendip Hills National Landscape

The Mendip Hills National Landscape is a limestone ridge rising abruptly from the flat Somerset Levels. This is not a landscape of high peaks or deep river valleys, but rather a rolling plateau of exposed, windswept grassland cut by steep, rocky gorges. The underlying limestone shapes everything you see on the path, from the dry stone walls dividing the fields to the absence of surface streams, as rainwater drains immediately into the porous rock below.

Underfoot, the walking terrain varies between thin, stony soils on the open hilltops and muddy tracks through the wooded slopes. In the gorges, such as Cheddar Gorge or Burrington Combe, you will walk beneath sheer limestone cliffs on paths that can be rough and uneven with loose scree. On the higher plateau, the ground is dominated by rough grass and gorse, where the tracks are wider and flatter, though often exposed to the elements.

While the popular gorge walks and viewpoints like Beacon Batch can be busy with visitors, the quieter paths across the plateau offer a more solitary experience. Here, you will encounter active sheep and cattle grazing, deep depressions in the ground known as sinkholes, and remnants of historic lead mining. It is a landscape defined by its geology, offering clear route-finding across open ground and steep climbs where the ridge meets the lowlands.