Quantock Hills
The Quantock Hills west of Bridgwater in Somerset, England, consist of heathland, oak woodlands, ancient parklands and agricultural land. They were England's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, designated in 1956.
Natural England have designated the Quantock Hills as a national character area. They are entirely surrounded by another: the Vale of Taunton and Quantock Fringes.
The hills run from the Vale of Taunton Deane in the south, for about to the north-west, ending at Kilve and West Quantoxhead on the coast of the Bristol Channel. They form the western border of Sedgemoor and the Somerset Levels. From the top of the hills on a clear day, it is possible to see Glastonbury Tor and the Mendips to the east, Wales as far as the Gower Peninsula to the north, the Brendon Hills and Exmoor to the west, and the Blackdown Hills to the south. The highest point on the Quantocks is Wills Neck, at. Soil types and weather combine to support the hills' plants and animals. In 1970, an area of was designated as a Biological Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Archaeological landscape features include Bronze Age round barrows, extensive ancient field systems and Iron Age hill forts. Roman silver coins have been discovered in West Bagborough. The hills are popular with walkers, mountain bikers, horse riders and tourists who explore paths such as the Coleridge Way.
Etymology
The name first appears in Saxon charters in around AD 880 as Cantuctun and two centuries later in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Cantoctona and Cantetone. The name means settlement by a rim or circle of hills; Cantuc is Celtic for a rim or circle, and -ton or -tun is Old English for a settlement. The highest point of the hills is called Will's Neck meaning ridge of the Welshman, probably referring to a time when the hills marked the boundary between the expanding Saxon kingdom of Wessex and the lands of the Britons or 'Welsh' to the West. A battle was fought locally at that time.Geology
The Quantock Hills are largely formed by rocks of the Devonian period, which consist of sediments originally laid down under a shallow sea and slowly compressed into solid rock. In the higher north-western areas older Early Devonian rocks known as Hangman Grits predominate and can be seen in the exposed rock at West Quantoxhead quarry, which was worked for road building. The Hangman Grits are described in three divisions: the lowest are the Little Quantock Beds, which are located near Crowcombe, and made up of siltstones and slates. Between Triscombe and West Quantoxhead is a layer of the Triscombe Beds which is around thick and is made up of green sandstone and mudstones. The uppermost division is the Hodders Combe Beds of sandstone and conglomerate and is approximately thick.Further south there are newer Middle and Late Devonian rocks, known as Ilfracombe beds and Morte Slates. These include sandstone and limestone, which have been quarried near Aisholt. At Great Holwell, south of Aisholt, is the only limestone cave in the Devonian limestone of North Devon and West Somerset. The lower fringes around the hills are composed of younger New Red Sandstone rocks of the Triassic period. These rocks were laid down in a shallow sea and often contain irregular masses or veins of gypsum, which was mined on the foreshore at Watchet.
Several areas have outcrops of slates. Younger rocks of the Jurassic period can be found between St Audries and Kilve. This area falls within the Blue Anchor to Lilstock Site of Special Scientific Interest and is considered to be of international geological importance.
Kilve has the remains of a red-brick retort built in 1924 after the shale in the cliffs was found to be rich in oil. Along this coast, the cliffs are layered with compressed strata of oil-bearing shale and blue, yellow and brown Lias embedded with fossils. The Shaline Company was founded in 1924 to exploit these strata but was unable to raise sufficient capital. The company's retort house is thought to be the first structure erected here for the conversion of shale to oil and is all that remains of the anticipated Somerset oil boom.
At Blue Anchor the coloured alabaster found in the cliffs gave rise to the name of the colour "Watchet Blue". The village has the only updraught brick kiln known to have survived in Somerset. It was built around 1830 and was supplied by small vessels carrying limestone to the small landing jetty. Now used as a garage, the kiln is thought to have operated until the 1870s, when the large-scale production of bricks in Bridgwater rendered small brickyards uneconomic.
Cockercombe tuff is a greenish-grey, hard pyroclastic rock formed by the compression of volcanic ash and is found almost exclusively in the south-eastern end of the Quantock Hills.
Climate
Along with the rest of South West England, the Quantock Hills has a temperate climate that is generally wetter and milder than the rest of England. The mean temperature is approximately and shows a seasonal and a diurnal variation, but because of the modifying effect of the sea the range is less than in most other parts of the United Kingdom. January is the coldest month with mean minimum temperatures between and. July and August are the warmest months, with mean daily maxima around. December is normally the most cloudy month and June the sunniest. High pressure over the Azores often brings clear skies to south-west England, particularly in summer.Cloud often forms inland especially near hills, and acts to reduce sunshine. The average annual sunshine totals around 1,600 hours. Rainfall tends to be associated with Atlantic depressions or with convection. In summer, convection caused by solar surface heating sometimes forms shower clouds, and a large proportion of rain falls from showers and thunderstorms at this time of year. Average rainfall is around. About 8 to 15 days of snowfall is typical. From November to March, mean wind speeds are highest; winds are lightest from June to August. The predominant wind direction is from the south-west.
Ecology
In 1970 an area of in the Quantocks was designated as a Biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. This a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom, selected by Natural England, for areas with particular landscape and ecological characteristics. It provides some protection from development, from other damage, and also from neglect, under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.The streams and open water such as Hawkridge Reservoir and Ashford Reservoir on Cannington Brook also provide habitats for a range of species.
Flora
The hilltops are covered in heathland of gorse, heather, bracken and thorn with plantations of conifer. The western side of the Quantocks are steep scarp slopes of pasture, woods and parkland. Deep stream-cut combes to the north-east contain extensive oak-woods with small flower-rich bogs above them. The areas where there is limited drainage are dominated by heather, with significant populations of cross-leaved heath, purple moor-grass, bilberry and wavy hair-grass. Drier areas are covered with bell heather, western gorse and bristle bent, while bracken is common on well-drained deeper soils. The springs and streams provide a specialist environment that supports bog pimpernel. The woodland is generally birch/sessile oak woodland, valley alder woodland and ash/wych elm woodland, which support a rich lichen flora. Alfoxton Wood is one of only three British locations where the lichen Tomasellia lectea is present.Fauna
The various habitats, together with the wide range of slopes and aspects, provide ideal conditionsfor a rich fauna. Amphibians including the palmate newt, common frog, and common toad are represented in the damper environments. Reptiles
present include adder, grass snake, slowworm and common lizard. Many bird species breed on the Quantocks, including the grasshopper warbler, nightjar, raven and the European pied flycatcher. The Quantocks are also an important site for red deer. Invertebrates of note include the silver-washed fritillary butterfly, and three nationally rare dead-wood beetles: Thymalus limbatus, Orchesia undulata and Rhinosimus ruficollis.
History
Origins
Evidence of activity in the Quantocks from prehistoric times includes finds of Mesolithic flints at North Petherton and Broomfield and many Bronze Age round barrows, such as Thorncombe Barrow above Bicknoller. Several ancient stones can be seen, such as the Triscombe Stone and the Long Stone above Holford. Many of the tracks along ridges of the Quantocks probably originated as ancient ridgeways. A Bronze Age hill fort, Norton Camp, was built to the south at Norton Fitzwarren, close to the centre of bronze making in Taunton.Image:Ruborough Camp Somerset Map.jpg|alt=Plan drawing with shading showing the position of earthworks.|thumb|Earthworks at Ruborough Camp
Iron Age sites in the Quantocks include major hill forts at Dowsborough and Ruborough, as well as several smaller earthwork enclosures, such as Trendle Ring and Plainsfield Camp. Ruborough near Broomfield is on an easterly spur from the main Quantock ridge, with steep natural slopes to the north and south east. The fort is triangular in shape, with a single rampart and ditch, enclosing. A linear outer work about away, parallel to the westerly rampart, encloses another. The name Ruborough comes from Rugan beorh or Ruwan-beorge meaning Rough Hill. The Dowsborough fort has an oval shape, with a single rampart and ditch following the contours of the hill top, enclosing an area of. The main entrance is to the east, towards Nether Stowey, with a simpler opening to the north west, aligned with a ridgeway leading down to Holford. A col to the south connects the hill to the main Stowey ridge, where a linear earthwork known as Dead Woman's Ditch cuts across the spur.
Little evidence exists of Roman influence on the Quantock region beyond isolated finds and hints of transient forts. A Roman port was at Combwich, and it is possible that a Roman road ran from there to the Quantocks, because the names Nether Stowey and Over Stowey come from the Old English stan wey, meaning stone way. In October 2001 the West Bagborough Hoard of 4th-century Roman silver was discovered in West Bagborough. The 681 coins included two denarii from the early 2nd century, and eight miliarense and 671 siliqua dating to 337–367 AD. The majority were struck in the reigns of emperors Constantius II and Julian and derive from a range of mints including Arles and Lyon in France, Trier in Germany and Rome.