This was an amazing walk, glad I threw away the guide books and just made our own using the Os Explorer maps. We started out in Wells, climbed up Tor Hill, continued on to King’s Castle (we think we noticed the right ditches amidst the trees to mark the hill forts that once stood there, but it is hard to tell). We passed some strange bunkers and great blocks of concrete that would have made sense next to the channel but made no sense here. Up to Maesbury Hill Fort — Iron Age ditches marking a settlement and wonderful views out across the Mendips and to Glastonbury Tor. Then over to Little London (not much like London — there is a fascinating description of where this name comes from here — one of many scattered across the UK which they argue were set up by Welsh cattle drivers. There was clearly a brewery here once, dye-works, workers’ cottages. Now it seems like it’s just rich people with varying degrees of bad taste). From there we jumped onto the Roman Road (I find it so amazing to traverse a Roman road, and followed the Fosse Way up across Beacon Hill (tumuli, glorious trees, perhaps my favourite place of the day) then down into Shepton Mallet — that first view of it is so beautiful, but we quickly entered the industrial area and those buses aren’t too regular.

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