[1] Start the walk heading east through the village. As the road runs downhill, you pass the Lutyens designed war memorial on the left, then you reach a convergence of roads, with the post office on the left.
(A) The triangular stone structure on the right was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens for Lady Horner, then owner of the manor, as a memorial to her son. The good Lady had water from the manor piped to various points around the village in her son’s memory. The water points can be seen inside, along with engraved words by Eric Gill, the typographer and skilled letter-cutter in stone and wood, whose typefaces Gill Sans and Perpetua are used throughout the world.
At this 6-way junction, take the second road, the first (on left) is Park Hill, the third crosses a bridge. and walk (with extreme care as there are no verges) out of the village for 300 metres until the road bends left.
[2] Here take a broad, surfaced bridleway on the right . Follow this, with Mells Stream soon joining on the right and as you bear round to the left, you enter a deep combe with a limestone buttress on your left; this is the Wadbury Valley. When you come to a split in the path with a ruined building in the fork take the lower, right-hand path to visit the remains of the industry that made the valley a hive of activity in the 18th and 19th centuries.
(B) The ironworks of James and John Fussell produced a vast array of tools for the agricultural industry, including scythes, reaphooks, spades, shovels and axes. They also manufactured water-wheels, anvils, forges, hammers and bellows. The business was a large local employer and the tools produced were exported to the far corners of the Empire. The works closed about 100 years ago and now the site is reverting back to nature, but amongst the ruins, pits where the steel was forged, hearths and kilns, as well as lengths of rail track can be discovered.
On completion of your explorations, retrace your steps to the fork in the path and this time take the higher route which runs along the back walls of the site. As you leave the last of the walls behind, you enter woodland.
At various times of the year, the woodland has carpets of snowdrops, celandines and bluebells. Dippers can be seen flying low over the water and in spring, the drumming of the great spotted woodpecker carries through the trees.
The path leads onto a driveway with houses high on the bank to your left. In a short distance as the drive climbs left, go ahead across a grassed area to re-enter woodland. The path weaves its way through a stand of conifers then mixed wood with the river to the right, eventually climbing away from the valley floor to reach a stone stile, beyond which, you emerge to join a lane.
[3] Walk downhill to where the lane turns right, crossing the river, which here broadens to a pool inhabited by mallards and moorhens.
(C) Nearby ‘Jackdaws’ was well known for its ‘kitchen concerts’ occasionally featured on television. Now, it’s called ‘Jackdaws Music Education Trust’, furthering the aims of aspiring musicians.
Cross the bridge and pass through the kissing gate on the right, then immediately take the narrow path on the left that climbs steeply up the bank immediately ahead.
Through the trees to your right, the mineral railway of the Amey Roadstone Company carries limestone quarried at Whatley, to join the main line at Frome.
A few minutes toil brings you to a path running along the top of the bank.
[4] Turn right to walk above the railway uninterrupted for about 800 metres to a road, whose approach is marked by a metal gate. As you reach the road, you are in an area known as Murder Combe.
The dastardly deed committed here is lost in the mists of time, but a couple of miles away is Dead Woman’s Bottom…
Turn left, then cross the road to a gate and field beyond. Walk ahead, soon following the fence on the left to a gate in the far left corner.
[5] Continue ahead with the hedge on the right, over a stile and onward in the same direction with the spire of Whatley Church appearing over the crest of the hill. In the field corner, cross a stile in the hedge on your right, then a few metres ahead, enter a further pasture. You now go half-left to climb a wooden stile beyond the first garden on the left. The narrow path leads you onto the driveway of a house, look for the waymarks left of the drive and follow the path, eventually emerging onto a road by the entrance to a vineyard.
Cross, and head left along the road for about a third of a mile (take care) passing on the right, a road signposted Nunney. 100 metres after this turning, beyond a farm on the right, there is a door in a high wall with a footpath sign. This leads through shrubbery and onto a gravel drive.
[6] Follow the drive right for a few metres and where it splits, keep left, descending on a track through a car park. Beyond a wooden gate, the track bears left over a bridge, don’t cross, but instead go ahead, down the bank to the right to reach Nunney Brook.
You are now in Nunney Combe and before proceeding with the watercourse on your left, turn to look at the old, buttressed bridge carrying the track over the brook. Your walk now takes you through woodland, again carpeted with spring flowers, although it can be quite muddy in winter and overgrown in summer. Eventually, the path brings you out onto a track where a left turn will take you over the brook (difficult in winter). follow the footpath sign to the right, walking with the stream now on your right. After 700 metres, a sewage plant is passed on the right bank and soon after, you leave the confines of the wood to enter a meadow with horse jumps. At the far side, you reach a driveway with farmhouses off to the right.
[8] Continue ahead until a high stone wall joins on the right. Keep to the wall and you will soon find yourself on the Frome road running through Nunney; turn right to enter the village. On your right opposite the church, Nunney Castle can be glimpsed through the trees.
(D) Nunney castle was built by Sir John de la Mare in 1373; a moated four-storey tower house, it was raised as a status symbol rather than a fortification. It was damaged in the civil war and left in such a weak condition that the north wall collapsed in 1910 revealing the interior. The moat is thought to be the deepest in England. However, the focal point of the village is not the castle, but the little market place beside the brook. Here, in the days of cloth-making, was ‘a pavement and place to wash wool’. The market cross stands here now; stop to read its history on the metal plaque.
Continue along the road. Before reaching the George Inn, take a lane on the right and cross a footbridge to reach the castle, where you can walk around the perimeter. Unless visiting the hostelry, leave the castle along the lane opposite, passing a chapel on the left. Turn right at the road junction and walk up the hill for a few metres until you reach a layby on the right, where two boulders keep vehicles away from a wooden kissing gate.
[9] Go through and follow the tarmac path, forking right to a further kissing gate which gives access to a field. Keep to the fence on the right, looking back to view the castle and church beyond. After passing through another gate, walk ahead aiming for a lone tree in the centre of the field surrounded by horse jumps. Keep this to your right and continue, to climb the bank ahead to a further field, then continue in the same direction passing the nearest electricity pole to your right to reach the far left corner of the field.
[10] Climb the stile and walk right, along the road (this is a particularly busy stretch during weekdays when the quarry is operating). After 300 metres, you pass a turning right and bungalow on the left. Continue a short distance further, then climb a stile on the right into pasture. Cross the field aiming for to the large, gnarled tree ahead and having reached this, look down in the hollow ahead for a metal kissing gate in the hedge. Pass through, and climb the field keeping to the hedge on the left until you reach a stile, just before power lines. Cross over, and walk towards the green slurry tank at the far side of the field. Pass to the left of it and climb the stile by the metal field gate, then go ahead a few yards to climb another which give access to the road, here bypassed. Turn right then left into the churchyard. Take the path running behind the church (which is usually locked), through a gate, go right and through another, then proceed to the stile half-left, but not before stopping to look at the fine old farm buildings to your left. Once over this stile, head straight across the field towards the trees on the far side and when these are reached, go left until you reach the field corner where you climb the stile and take the steep steps down to the road
[11] Here, you must make a decision! You have almost four miles still to walk, much of it on a meandering diversion around the recently extended Whatley Quarry.
If you would prefer to shorten the walk by 2.5 miles, then you must follow the road for almost half a mile as it descends right, passing the quarry entrance, until you pick up a footpath between the quarry embankment and the road. Keep to the path as it turns left at a road junction as far as the stile at [15].
If your choice is the complete circuit, cross with care and go right for a short distance to a footpath sign with steps climbing the bank on the left. Follow the winding path through the trees, passing a large water tank on the right, then keeping more or less to the fence on the left until a waymark post directs you half right towards the quarry, descending steeply via a set of steps to the stream in the valley bottom with the quarry visible ahead through the trees. Follow the path through a coppice with the stream on the right for about 400 metres until the path begins to climb away to the left and here, climb the stile in the wire fence on the right, into a meadow.
[12] Walk left across the field towards the wall and road, where you cross a stream then turn right to follow it, now to your right. Turn left at the bottom of the field (don’t cross the stile) and walk with the boundary on the right. Before you reach the end of the field, look for a stile and footbridge crossing the stream to your right (obscured by brambles in late summer).
You now enter a world of moss-covered boulders, where several species of fern, including the polypody and hartstongue thrive in the shady, damp terrain.
Follow the valley bottom with the stream to your left and in a short distance you will reach a restored section of path over what was until recently, very difficult terrain. Your undulating route twists and turns under a canopy of predominately oak trees until you reach a more open area where the inhospitable quarry fence becomes your guide. When you get to Chantry Lane, you must now cross to a new bridleway. Follow this broad route, going left, then right and passing a waymarked stile on the left. Continue along the bridleway to a right-hand junction.
[13] Keep right, and after a further right bend, pass through a 2-in-1 field gate to reach Finger Farm. Beyond the farm, pass through two further 2-in-1s as the bridleway turns left and then right, now running parallel with a lane. Eventually, you pass through a belt of trees to reach Chantry Lane again.
[14] Turn left, then in a few paces climb the stile on the right. Now go left towards a green-roofed barn, then over another stile by a metal gate into what can only be described as a farm wasteland. Keeping the quarry to the right, pass a large barn on the left then climb a stile in the fence ahead and continue to a further stile then onward, to yet another which gives access to a copse, home to many rabbits. As you leave the woodland by way of yet another stile, you may wish to climb the banking on your right to view the desolation that is Whatley Quarry, otherwise, go ahead over grassland following the power lines until you reach a stile by a road. The shorter route meets here, approaching from the opposite direction.
[15] Cross the road bearing slightly right to a stile in the hedge; over this, then head diagonal right down the field towards a hedge corner. Here, a waymark sign directs you to the right, along the hedge, to reach a substantial squeezer stile on the left. Pass through then go down the field with the hedge on your right to the bottom corner where a similar stile brings you out onto a lane.
(E) This lane was the old road to Whatley which ran up the hill parallel to the downward route you have just taken. The road was downgraded to a footpath in 1840. The terraced cottages on your left are almshouses, built in 1708 to house four men and four women, at a cost of about £120.
At the corner of the lane turn left and proceed with Mells Stream below to the right. In 300 metres, opposite Old Prospect Farm on the left, a surfaced path on the right drops down away from the road by Brook Cottage, take this to reach the stream which you cross by way of a new wooden footbridge, to arrive at a lane. Turn left and almost immediately, go right, to climb the hill.
There are delightful cottages along this lane and on the left, look for the 18th century lock-up. Further up the lane, Poyntz House was once the home of a wealthy 17th century clothier. Near the top of the lane, the high stone wall on the right belongs to the 18th century rectory, which can be glimpsed along its entrance drive before the road junction is reached.
Continue to reach the stone bus shelter on the main road, your starting point.