Rockholes & Rocklumps

Picking our way back from Devon towards Bristol to meet up with M&C we'd planned in a walk at Cheddar Gorge.  Normally this place is heaving with people which makes it a location we'd avoid (I was about to say "like the plague" but the expression seems somewhat redundant now).

However, despite the first level of opening being well past, the place was pleasantly empty.  I had a choice of car parks to be the only car in (ironically except the tiny one that we' targeted).

We parked at the 'bottom' of the gorge and walked up the steep side care of 'Jacob's Ladder' steps, then did a complete circuit to the shallower bit at the 'top' and back the other side, and finished off with a cream tea - which was well justified by then.

No cheese though.

Wandering vaguely in the direction of Bristol with a bit of time to kill we stopped off at Chew Valley Lake which we won't bother doing again.  However, meandering on, I randomly followed a couple of 'antiquity' brown road signs and some home-made ones to three stone circles we had never heard of, at Stanton Drew.

Apparently, according to English Heritage, its "one of the most important prehistoric complexes in the British Isles"...

in a field behind some bungalows, with a sign on the gate saying beware of the cows.

"surprisingly little known" - English Heritage - hmmm.