Crowcombe to Bridgwater

13 May 2010 - Crowcombe to Bridgwater

Distance - 13.5 miles

Weather - Sunny

We stayed at - The Old Vicarage, 45-51 St Mary Street, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA6 3EQ Cost - £79.00 (no breakfast)

We weren't mistaken when we thought that climbing up the mile long 1:4 hill back to Crowcombe Park Gate would be a challenge. If there had been a bus or a car to take us to the top, back to the point we left off last night, we would have both been willing to use it! Unfortunately there wasn't and so after a number of stops we made it to the top on foot! From there we climbed past Triscombe Quarry and up to the summit of Wills Neck, which at 386 metres is the highest point of the Quantocks. Basically we then walked along the ridge of the Quantocks until we reached Park End. From Lydeard Cross we picked up the Samaritans Way South West into Bridgwater.

Just before Goathurst we came across a building called the Temple of Harmony, apparently a 1767 replica of a 1st century temple in Rome. Full credit to the Somerset Buildings Preservation Trust, who rescued it from dereliction, apparently for a number of years it had been used for as a cattle shelter. Unfortunately though, there were a number of threatening signs around it, as well as a rather unsightly deer fence, so we couldn't get very near to look at it or take a photo.

For the last two miles of our walk the path took us across meadows, known as The Meads, then finally into Bridgwater. Jessie Barker Gardner in the 1930 book From Lands End to John O'Goats, called it "a shabby little town on the slimy estuary Parrett", which was possibly a little unkind. It was your typical large urban conurbation. The Old Vicarage was a kind of hotel-cum-guesthouse and provided an adequate stop for the night.