Proud Cheddarites as we are, we decided to find out more about our picturesque Somerset town…. According to the census, the village of Cheddar has a population of people, with an average age of 43! Cheddar has a number of famous citizens. The village was the childhood home of Bros members Matt and Luke Goss.
Jack Bessant, bass guitarist for the band Reef grew up nearby too. With a maximum depth of m ft and covering a massive 3 miles, Cheddar Gorge is the largest gorge in the UK. It was formed over the last 1. During these periods, permafrost blocked the entrance of the caves and made the underlying limestone impermeable.
These animals help to keep down the growth of vegetation and scrub on the gorge. Introducing the sheep to the gorge has enabled them to thrive in a natural habitat. Archaeological excavations have shown the remains of an ancient Anglo-Saxon palace in the school grounds. In , construction was halted on the building of a new Languages block when two Roman skeletons were unearthed. Archaeologists have found that the earliest phase of activity on the site dates back thousands of years back to the prehistoric period.
Cheddar Gorge and the surrounding Mendip Hills are famed for their fairly short, but geologically varied caves. These caves are known for their intricate stalagmites. In , scientists from the Natural History Museum published an analysis of skulls found in the Cheddar Gorge cave which argued that many had been deliberately fashioned into ritualistic drinking cups and bowls.
They suggested that other evidence such as specific cut marks on bones suggested that prehistoric cannibalism had been practiced either at the cave, or by visitors to the cave. As well as being famous for producing cheese, Cheddar and the surrounding countryside was famed for its strawberries.
The tasty fruit has been cultivated on the gentle slopes of the Mendip hills for hundreds of years. The line closed in , but it has recently been transformed into a popular cycle track. In this photograph of rocks on the footpath, you can see that they have been smoothed and polished by the foot prints of the many thousands of people who have walked this trail. The National Trust say that the route is around 1 hour 40 minutes in duration, but Mike completed it in just under 3 hours with lots of little breaks to either take a photo, or get his breath back you decide!
From the top of the gorge you can see the circular form of Axbridge reservoir in the distance, built in the s to provide the city of Bristol and surrounding towns with water:. Skip to content. Credit: BGS Now that the climate has warmed up the limestone and surface layers of soil and mud have thawed and the water no longer flows on the surface but permeates the limestone and makes underground drainage. As a royal manor and bustling market town Cheddar enjoyed prosperity in the middle ages, while lawless lead miners, under royal patronage, ran riot on the Mendips.
The locals might have been left to themselves but for the late 18th century Romantic movement, which led wealthy and cultured people to take an interest in wild and dramatic scenery.
Bristol merchants and the local gentry flocked to Cheddar, and local people rushed to earn money by catering to their enthusiasm. But this earthly paradise was actually created by nature with nature in mind. Many rare and endangered species and creatures rely on the Gorge and Caves and on each other for survival: Greater and Lesser Horseshoe bats, Peregrine falcons, dormice, water voles, otters, Great Crested newts, right down to flowers so rare they only live in Cheddar, the Cheddar pink and the Cheddar bedstraw.
Rock face cleaning, scrub bashing and grazing by a herd of British Primitive goats are necessary to keep down the invasive greenery which left to itself would choke out the rare and interesting items. The Gorge is the place to pursue the elusive beauties of nature into a thousand hidden and inaccessible spaces.
Home Explore the BBC. Just inside the entrance remains of several human skeletons, including the year-old Cheddar Man, were found along with many other archaeological artifacts. The show cave follows the former route of the underground river through several well decorated chambers. The underground river has now found a new lower route, discovered by cave divers in , and emerges to daylight at Cheddar Risings.
Cox's Cave was discovered by George Cox in and contains many stalactites and stalagmites. Several other small caves exist in the cliffs above, remnants of earlier courses of the underground River Yeo, long since abandoned by down-cutting of the gorge.
Many are home to roosting and hibernating bats, including significant numbers of the greater horseshoe bat. The limestone crags and cliff faces are home to many plant species, including slender bedstraw and lesser meadow-rue, and the rare and protected Cheddar pink.
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