the times Saturday April 30 2022Outside 19
ALAMYpioneering geologists such as Henry De
la Beche to understand that the material
that composes rocks was not laid down
in one slow process, but by a series of
upheavals and collisions.
We wandered back along the East
Mendip Way to Bedlam. Here we
climbed out of the valley and over a
ridge to find the long straight track of
the old Frome-Radstock railway line,
now the Collier’s Way cycle path. We
followed it west on a high embankment
where the rusty old rails accompanied
us, saplings growing between.
A short road section along ConduitT
here was a feeling of
eternal spring on this
glorious sunny morning
in the Arts & Crafts village
of Mells. Toddlers played
in the stream. Even the
cattle in the fields looked
fabulously clean. We followed a
bridleway eastward through Wadbury
Valley, past hollows and great stone
walls pierced with round and square
holes, arches, deep channels, side falls
and rapids — the remnants of the once-
mighty Fussells ironworks that brought
prosperity and industrial clatter to the
green valley from the 1740s onwards.
A baby chaffinch squatted on a hazel
branch, its parent hovering in mid-air
like a hummingbird as she crammed
insect morsels into its open beak. A
nuthatch perched upside down on a
sycamore trunk, glancing this way
and that. The river curved and forked,
dwindled and swelled, while from the
tangle of foliage came a constant
stream of warbler and wren song.
Children splashed in the shallows.
At Bedlam a boy with a shrimping net
showed us his catch — two big crayfish
six inches long. Beyond Bedlam the riverswung off into Vallis Vale, past caves
with twisted rock strata.
We were lucky to stumble upon De la
Beche’s Unconformity. It lay behind a
screen of bushes on an unmarked path,
one of 19th-century UK geology’s
landmark sites, a lightbulb moment of
understanding about how the world
was really made. A thick layer of yellow
Jurassic inferior oolitic limestone lies
horizontally on top of a steeply inclined
grey mass of carboniferous limestone
like a cap. Yet there’s a gap of 170 million
years between the two depositions.
Unconformities like this helpedA good walk Wadbury Valley
and the Colliers Way, Somerset
MELLSstartRemains of
Fussells
ironworksTalbot
Inn Wadbury GreatElm
Valley
BedlamA362Colliers WayConduit
BridgeConduit
HillRailway
(disused)Quarry &
De La Beche
Unconformity,
Vallis ValeMells
StreamSOMERSET500 metresYeovilSalisburyBathHill and we were walking a wheat field
path toward the tower of Mells church,
seemingly adrift in a sea of corn and
newly mown grass.
Start Talbot Inn, Mells, Frome BA11 3PN
(OS ref ST 728492)
Getting there Bus 184 (Frome-
Midsomer Norton)
Road Mells is signed from A362 near
Buckland Dinham, between Frome
and Radstock.
Walk (OS Explorer 142): Left along
street past shop. Left (730490, “Great
Elm”). In 250m right (733490, bridleway)
along Wadbury Valley beside Mells
Stream. In two thirds of a mile fork
right (743491, “Wyvern Way”). In a third
of a mile join East Mendip Way/EMW
(748491); follow past Bedlam for two
thirds of a mile. Where EMW turns right
over bridge (755491), turn left; in 50m
cross open space; keep ahead (narrow,
unsigned path) through bushes to old
quarry/De la Beche Unconformity
(756492). Return along EMW; in a
quarter of a mile, right across river in
Bedlam (754495); up roadway to road
(752495). Dogleg right/left across; stile
(fingerpost), field path, then road; left
along Colliers Way cycle path (751498).
In one and a half miles, left at Conduit
Bridge (730506) along road. In 650m
on left bend, ahead (728500); field
paths to Mells.
Lunch/Accommodation Talbot Inn,
Mells (01373 812254, talbotinn.com)
Info mellsvillage.co.uk
Twitter @somerville_c
Christopher SomervilleA baby
chaffinch
squatted on a
hazel branch,
its parent
hovering in
mid-air like a
hummingbird
Above left: St Andrew’s
Church in Mells,
Somerset. Top right: a
nuthatch. Above right:
the Talbot Inn in MellsHow hard is it?
8 miles, easy; river-
side, old rail paths