Chantry Tea Gardens (Somerset)

Kilve beach is in West Somerset, within the Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is on the West Somerset Coast Path. The beach itself is a sand/rock mix and sits below interesting rock formations. As the site is an SSSI, fossil hunting is not allowed on the cliffs and rocks but you may see fossils in the rock pools/boulders on the beach. The cliffs are unstable on this stretch of coast and you should keep clear. Pay and display car park, toilets, tearooms.

East Quantoxhead beach is a sand and rock beach with interesting rock formations and fossils, backed by very unstable cliffs. You will need to park in the village of East Quantoxhead approximately half a mile from the coast. This is a nice walk from the village to the cliffs and beach. When you get to the cliffs you have a steep set of steps leading down to the beach. It is possible to walk along the beach to Kilve when the tide is out. No facilities at the beach.

Doniford beach is a large sand, mud and rock beach with rock pools, popular with fossil hunters. Car parking and holiday camps.

Watchet beach is a rocky beach that at low tide exposes sand and mud. The beach is located next to Watchet harbour and is popular with fossil hunters. Facilities include parking, toilets, shops, pub, cafe, slipway and the harbour.

Combe Sydenham is a 15th century manor house and Grade I listed building. Combe Sydenham Hall was the home of the Sydenham family from the fourteen hundreds to the mid 18th century. In 1585, Francis Drake married Elizabeth Sydenham, the only child of Sir George Sydenham, who was the High Sheriff of Somerset. Drake and Elizabeth Sydenham were to be married earlier however he left on a long voyage and her father arranged for her to be married to a son of the Wyndham family of Orchard Wyndham. On the day of wedding as they were approaching the Church of St Mary at Stogumber there was a loud clap of thunder and a large meteorite crashed through the roof. This was seen as a bad omen and the wedding stopped. Drake had arrived back in Plymouth the same day, and they were later married at the Church of All Saints in Monksilver. The iron meteorite, which became known as “Drake’s cannon ball”, is 14 inches (36 cm) in diameter. It has been polished when rolled down hills and has remained at the house ever since. The house is set in a 500 acres (202.3 ha) estate which offers a Deer Park and a variety of walks.

Cleeve Abbey is a 13th centurt Cistercian monastry which boasts the most impressively complete and unaltered set of monastic cloister buildings in England. Standing roofed and two storeys high, they include the gatehouse; the 15th-century refectory with its glorious angel roof; an unusual ‘painted chamber’; and the floor of an earlier refectory, decked from end to end with 13th-century heraldic tiles.

Nettlecombe Court is a country mansion house near the village of Williton in Exmoor National Park in Somerset. Part of the house originates from medieval times and has been added to over the years. In the early 1960s, Nettlecombe Court became a girls’ boarding school but in 1967 the Field Studies Council turned the house and grounds into the Leonard Wills Field Centre. Today, through courses and training on offer, individuals and institutions can learn more about the surrounding environment. Nettlecombe Court sits in Nettlecombe Park, a 90-acre estate and a designed Site of Specific Scientific Interest.