Wells & Wookey Hole Circular, Somerset

The city of Wells is well known for its cathedral, Bishop’s Palace, being the smallest city in England (St. Davids in Wales is smaller) and being the place that Hot Fuzz was filmed. Wonderful architecture and stunning views were guaranteed on our Wells and Wookey Hole Circular.

We recently went to Wells to complete a small circular walk of about 6.5 miles that would take us out of the City and up onto the Mendip Hills and then back down through Ebbor Gorge and back to Wells via the village of Wookey Hole that is renowned for its famous caves.

We began in the centre of Wells where a busy market was in progress.

We began to walk out of the centre, past the cathedral and the surrounding buildings. The medieval cathedral in Wells is stunning and entirely Gothic in style.
We then walked through some very quaint and old cobbled streets. It is very difficult not to admire the architecture in Wells.

We then followed the Old Bristol Road out of Wells and began our climb that would take up on to the Mendips. At first our climb was gradual as we followed the road and footpaths.

It was great to look back across the city and its surroundings as we got higher. Glastonbury Tor could be seen on the horizon which is where we were only a few weeks ago.

View from Old Bristol Road across the Somerset Levels

We continued up hill taking in the views. The countryside was wonderful and the sun was beginning to appear momentarily from behind the clouds.

We reached the point at which our route branched off the Old Bristol Road. We were now in for a very steep climb. The footpath looked almost vertical from the bottom and we were practically climbing for large sections of this part.

At the top, exhausted and stooped over a fence post, I look up and remembered why I like to do this sort of thing. We picked up a track to take us along the top of hills and continued toward Ebbor Gorge.