Somerset Walks - Will's Neck, Highest Hill on The Quantocks
Ranges of hills and mountains have high points, and these big peaks are the ones that will always win out in the altitudinous public relations war – so that Everest is even more famous than its great hosts, the Himalayas; Mont Blanc tends to loom in mind and body above all other Alps; Dunkery comes top in Exmoor’s roll of honour and even modest Brown Willy can lay claim the Cornish throne without too much in the way of competition.
the trig-point up on Wills Neck
But strangers who don’t know the lovely Quantock Hills tend to be forgiven when they ask which local eminence claims to be the range’s crowning glory.
To find the reason why Will’s Neck avoids the limelight we’ll quote one of the finest rural writers ever to bless the South West peninsula – Berta Lawrence’s book Quantock Country, first published over half a century ago, is one of the best written guides you’ll find …
“The range of hills runs from north-east to south-west, 12 miles long and nowhere more than a few miles wide, their highest point reaching 1,260 feet on Will’s Neck - so that Quantock country will not appeal to those who admire only the magnificent and grandiose,” wrote Mrs Lawrence.
“It’s beauty is simple and unsophisticated and the motif of its pattern constantly repeated, without monotony but without much variety – red earth and green grass, apple orchards and stack-yards, farm and round-pillared byre, roofs of thatch and russet tiles, brown barn and cider house, colour washed cottage and rose-red church, red herds and white flocks, deep red lanes, titled red banks and running streams, coombe and wood and heathery moorland.
“That is all. The beauty lies in the simplicity - and the variety only in changes wrought by the cycle of the seasons…”
No one could put it better. And if Will’s Neck is Quantock’s highest point, then it only nudges its crown a few feet higher than some of the other wonderful hilltops that line the ridge.
Despite not lording it over other high-points in the landscape, the hill is well worth visiting. The best way of finding it is to follow the signposts to Triscombe, which lies just off the main Taunton to Minehead road. Within a mile you will be in one of the loveliest hamlets in Somerset – tucked, as it is, under the central massif of the Quantock ridge.
Tucked, also, under one of the county’s biggest quarries. Triscombe’s red aggregate was used in all manner of famous places - I seem to remember writing that the rock of the Quantocks was the first thing most visitors see when they come to Britain, because it was at one time incorporated in the runways at Heathrow. I was also once told that the regal red road outside Buckingham Palace was made of the stuff.
Thankfully, the quarry is quiet nowadays, and there’s not much at Triscombe save for a handful of pretty cottages and a pub.
A steep dirt track climbs directly past the quarry and eventually issues out on to the ancient drovers’ road which is a wonderful feature of the Quantock ridge, no matter where you meet it. There’s something antediluvian about walking on this unmade track. If you’ve seen Lord of The Rings movies and you want to feel what it might be like to be in such a world – try taking a turn along this prehistoric trail. Ancient gnarled beeches are a feature of the wide rutted road and somehow it’s easy to imagine Somerset’s answer to a bunch of Hobbits marching along here.
The old name for this section of the track vouches for its antiquity – a 13th century document calls it “Alferode” and it’s thought that King Alfred marched along here with his men on his way from Devon.
Close to the junction where it meets the track from below there is a two-and-a-half foot high menhir called Triscombe Stone which I’d recommend sitting on. Why? Because local legend has it this benign monolith will grant you a wish if you do.
To your right (or to the south) a path ascends gently uphill and this is the way up to Will’s Neck. The strange name comes from “Ridge of the Wealas” - which refers to a local tribe that, according to tradition, fought with the Romans up here.
The 360-degree views are most definitely in the region’s list of superior panoramas - on a clear day you will see the whole of North Somerset, including the vast expanse of The Levels and the Mendip Hills, and beyond you’ll even glimpse the new Severn Bridge spanning the upper limits of the Bristol Channel and the Brecon Beacons. The vistas south include all the northern escarpment of The Blackdown Hills, a corner of central Devon, distant Dartmoor, the Brendon Hills and Exmoor.
My father, Peter Hesp, who was to become a well known West Country journalist, came up here on his very first visit to the region and saw a thing he had never witnessed before, and has never spied since. He was sitting on a motorbike, which he’d ridden to the top (not something you’d be allowed to do today) when a whirlwind came whipping along the ridge picking up branches and small trees as it went. Hesp-senior had to cling to the handlebars with all his strength as it blasted past.
The whirlwind left him bemused, but hugely impressed – and he thought: “I have come to a land of great beauty, and even greater excitement – I think I’ll stay.”
I am glad he did, otherwise there’d have been no subsequent meeting with a local girl and no Hesp-junior tramping around extolling the many virtues of the mountains of the West Country on this website
