Crook Peak

Crook Peak

In Somerset for the day, we wanted a good, reasonably quick walk near to our destination. We thought of doing the book version of this wonderful walk. [Sue Gearing – More Mendip Walks (Cromwell Press)] That is a classic circular walk: you park underneath Crook Peak, make a steep climb to the ridge which leads to it, walk along the ridge to the Peak, then along the main ridge of the Mendips to Wavering Down. This walk then swings right to descend through woodlands and returns to the start along the road and then by a stream. In essence, the climb, ridge walk and woods are lovely, but the final couple of miles is fairly boring.

After some reflection we decided to start the walk from the National Trust car park on the edge of Winscombe and walk up through Kings Wood to the other end of the ridge.

Path through Kings Wood

We then walked along Wavering Down descended and then climbed again to reach Crook Peak.

Wavering Down leading to Crook Peak

Crook Peak - closer now

Unusually, we then simply turned round and came back. However, the joy of this walk is the wonderful views in all directions, so this was not much of a hardship. One highlight was a lovely view over Cheddar Reservoir.

Cheddar Reservoir from Wavering Down

Five miles overall.

Rating: four stars.

Maps: Explorer 141 (Cheddar Gorge and Mendip Hills West) for the start of this walk; Explorer 153 (Weston-Super-Mare) for Crook Peak itself.

Crook peak

Crook Peak is a landmark for miles around, and was apparently used as such by ships negotiating the Bristol Channel. It was also the location of one of the beacons which signaled the arrival of the Spanish Armada.