Additional information
Terrain
- Mostly smooth, level paths and tracks
Landscape
- Reed beds and water-meadows
Dog friendliness
- On leads in reserve, can be free on drove tracks. 'No Dogs' on raised bog path (but this section is easily avoided)
Parking
- Free car park at Decoy Pool
Toilets en route
- None on route
About the walk
At Westhay Moor the Somerset Wildlife Trust (SWT) is carefully recreating the original peat wetland from a time before drainage and peat cuttings. This involves raising the water table with polythene barriers, and importing sphagnum moss and peatland plants from Cumbria. 'True blanket bog', one of... their notices reminds us, 'should wobble when walked on...' And while these rehabilitated peat diggings are very good news for waterfowl and the nightjar, for rare spiders and the bog bush cricket, they are still a long way from the original Somerset moor. Moor or morass? 'Moor' is the same as 'mire' or 'morass'; the Saxon word first occurs in the account of King Alfred taking refuge at Muchelney. For the Saxons the moor was a place of mystery and fear. About 1,500 years ago the monster Grendel was the original 'Thing from the Swamp' in the poem of Beowulf. Open water alternated with reed beds and mud. The inhabitants moved around by boat, or by wading, or on stilts. Even if you could see out over the reeds it rarely helped as the mist would come down. And, at nightfall, the will o' the wisp misled you into the unstable mud, just in case you hadn't been swallowed up in it already. If you did ever get out on to firm land, you were quite likely to be infected with ague or marsh fever. The modern name, 'malaria', reflects its supposed origin in the misty airs of the wetlands. Oliver Cromwell, a fenman from East Anglia, died of malaria. It persisted in the marshes of Essex into the 20th century. Wet refuge For those who knew its ways, the moor was a safe refuge. Iron Age tribes built a village on wooden piles near Glastonbury; the Romans complained of the tribesmen who hid with only their heads above the water. Alfred found safety from the Danes here, as did the monks of Glastonbury. Wealth in the wet The moor was also, in its own way, wealthy. The less wet sections grew a rich summer pasture, fertilised by the silt of the winter floods. It's no coincidence that Britain's most famous cheese comes from the edge of the Levels. The deep, moist soil also grew heavy crops of hemp. Henry VIII made the growing of this useful plant compulsory, as it supplied cordage and sailcloth for the navy. Today, under its Latin name of Cannabis sativa, it is, of course, strictly forbidden. The wetter ground yielded osiers for baskets and reed for thatch; wildfowl and fish; and goose feather quills for penmen. Fuel was peat, or willow poles from the pollarded trees whose roots supported the ditches. And the rent for this desirable property was often paid in live eels.
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Somerset
Somerset remains rural and unspoiled, and ever popular areas to visit are the limestone and red sandstone Mendip Hills rising to over 1,000 feet, and by complete contrast, to the south and southwest, the flat landscape of the Somerset Levels. Another popular spot, the Quantocks, once the haunt of poets Coleridge and Wordsworth, are noted for their gentle slopes, heather-covered moorland expanses and red deer.
