Radstock

Radstock & The East Mendips

The Mendip Hills is one of the most beautiful ranges of hills in the South West of England. Famous for their thick and suddenly-occuring "Mendip Mists", the hills extend inwards from the Bristol Channel for about 25 miles, reaching heights of over 300 metres (1,000 feet). The southern slopes of the Mendips are well known for their cave formations, which include Cheddar Gorge, and The Rock Of Ages. The earliest settlements on Mendip date from the Prehistoric period (c3500 BC).

Between Bath and the main Mendip ridge there are three major valleys, the Cam, the Nettlebridge and the one in the middle! Curiously the latter carries no name on any Ordnance Survey map, but because Wellow Brook meanders along its course, it is generally known as Wellow Valley.

Radstock is set in this pretty vale some eight miles south of Bath. Like many English towns and villages, Radstock first appears in print in the Domesday Book (Stoche 1086 AD). Radstock translates from Old English into "The stockade by the Roman road.", and is taken from rad (road) and stoc (fort or stockade).

The Roman road which is mentioned is the Fosse Way, which was constructed to connect the important Roman centres in what is now Lincolnshire and Devonshire. Part of the route can be traced today, and much of the alignment is still used by such modern roads as that from Radstock to Shepton Mallet.

In it's industrial prime Radstock and Midsomer Norton (or Norton-Radstock as the district is now abbreviated) was at the heart of the North Somerset coalfield, and was so industrially important that it was served by two railways; The Somerset & Dorset Railway, and The Great Western Railway. Nowadays the railways have gone, but both rail and coal have left their inevitable marks on the configuration of the local landscape. The tips (or batches as they are locally known) have largely been landscaped, or covered with trees, but some architectural remains of rail and coal can still be found - albeit covered with undergrowth.

The economy in this area of Mendip is principally agriculture, with a small amount of industry remaining in the larger towns of Shepton Mallet, Wells, Radstock, and Midsomer Norton. The majority of local inhabitants now commute to work in Bath (8 miles) or Bristol (21 miles).

Currently there is a great deal of public concern about the environmental impact of intensive quarrying on The Mendips. On the one hand ARC are arguing for a significant expansion to Whatley Quarry. ARC's case is that this expansion is much needed, and will provide needed road and building material to the UK economy. Opposing ARC is a collection of pressure-groups, chief amongst them is Friends Of The Earth.

Environmental damage on Mendip is not a modern phenomena. Lawsuits between Nicholas Ennor and The Wookey Hole Paper Mill over water pollution of the river Axe are famously documented in 1857. I should sound a note of caution though. Nicholas Ennor was not a far-sighted environmentalist. In fact it was he who was prosecuted by the Paper Mill, because his lead minery had polluted the water too much for the Paper Mill to work with!

Written by Brennig Jones,
January 1997

Reproduced with the kind permission of the author.