Crook Peak to Shute Shelve Hill is a 332.2

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...

(820.9 acre) geological and biological Site of Special Scientific Interest near the western end of the

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the Frome valley in the east, the hills ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. The line of hills runs for approximately from west to east and includes: Crook Peak, Compton Hill, Wavering Down, Cross Plain and Shute Shelve Hill. Most of the site is owned by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

, which bought in 1985, and much of it has been designated as

common land Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect Wood fuel, wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person ...

. It was notified as an SSSI by Natural England in 1952. The ecology of the area includes ancient woodland and calcareous grassland which supports nationally rare species including the

Cheddar pink ''Dianthus gratianopolitanus'', commonly known as the Cheddar pink or clove pink, is a species of plant in the family Caryophyllaceae. It is a herbaceous perennial, hardy to zones 4–8. It grows to a height of 0.5 to 1 feet, blooming from May ...

. The underlying rocks are Carboniferous Limestone containing

phreatic ''Phreatic'' is a term used in hydrology to refer to aquifers, in speleology to refer to cave passages, and in volcanology to refer to a type of volcanic eruption. Hydrology The term phreatic (the word originates from the Greek , meaning "well" ...

caves at

Shute Shelve Cavern Shute Shelve Cavern is a natural cave system located in Shute Shelve Hill, Somerset, England, above Axbridge in the Mendip Hills not far from Cheddar. The phreatic cave contains fossils of speleothems over 350,000 years old. It was mined for it ...

and

Picken's Hole Picken's Hole is a small cave on the southern side of Crook Peak in the Mendip Hills in the English county of Somerset. It has been designated as a scheduled monument. It has sometimes been confused with a nearby cave called Scragg's Hole, includin ...

from which fossils dating from the Middle Devensian have been recovered.

Description

The site extends for some from west to east. Near its eastern end it is divided by a gap used by the

A38 road The A38, parts of which are known as Devon Expressway, Bristol Road and Gloucester Road, Bristol, Gloucester Road, is a major A-class trunk road in England. The road runs from Bodmin in Cornwall to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. It is long, mak ...

and the disused Cheddar Valley railway line. At the western end of the hills, closest to the M5 motorway, is Crook Peak which reaches , and forms a prominent feature from the surrounding landscape. Evidence of early human occupation of Crook Peak includes a polished

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

axe. It was used as the site of a beacon at the time of the

Spanish Armada The Spanish Armada (a.k.a. the Enterprise of England, es, Grande y Felicísima Armada, links=no, lit=Great and Most Fortunate Navy) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aris ...

. A ridge to the south east of Crook Peak, known as 'The Razor', is used by the

West Mendip Soaring Association West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

to fly model aircraft when the wind is a south-westerly, southerly or north-easterly direction. WaveringDown2

Compton Hill is above the village of

Compton Bishop Compton Bishop is a small village and civil parish, at the western end of the Mendip Hills in the English county of Somerset. It is located close to the historic town of Axbridge. Along with the village of Cross and the hamlets of Rackley and We ...

. Also within the parish of Compton Bishop is Wavering Down which reaches a height of , and is marked with a

triangulation station A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity. The nomenclature varies regionally: they a ...

. Around the small village of

Cross A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a sa ...

is Wavering Down House which was, for the last 20 years of his life, the home of the British comedian Frankie Howerd. The house is now a

tourist attraction A tourist attraction is a place of interest that tourists visit, typically for its inherent or an exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement. Types Places of natural b ...

, and in the summer hosts concerts and opens regularly as a museum of Howerd's collection of

memorabilia A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...

to raise fund for charities. Above the village itself is Cross Plain where there are

earthworks Earthworks may refer to: Construction *Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour * Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil *Earthworks (military), m ...

remaining from enclosures. Further east is Shute Shelve Hill, east of the A38 road, reaching a height of , above the town of Axbridge and adjoining

Axbridge Hill and Fry's Hill Axbridge Hill and Fry's Hill () is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, notified in 1990. The hills are above the town of Axbridge, immediately to the east of Shute Shelve Hill. This is a nationally ...

. A long-distance footpath, the

Mendip Way The Mendip Way is an long-distance footpath across the Mendip Hills from Weston-super-Mare to Frome. It is divided into two sections. The West Mendip Way was opened in 1979 and starts at the Bristol Channel at Uphill Cliff. It climbs the Me ...

, follows much of the northern boundary of the site. There is also a long tunnel which was part of the

Cheddar Valley Line The Cheddar Valley line was a railway line in Somerset, England, running between Yatton and Witham. It was opened in parts: the first section connecting Shepton Mallet to Witham, later extended to Wells, was built by the East Somerset Railway fr ...

but is now used by pedestrians and cyclists. Within the tunnel the central surface has been paved with tarmac, but it is unlit except for a central guide line of small guide lamps. The north half of the tunnel is brick lined, but about midway it reverts to unlined rock for the southern half, marking a change in the underlying geology from sandstone to limestone.

Etymology

Crook Peak has been important as a landmark and boundary from very early times, and the origins of the name are unclear. The local parish council state that 'Crook' comes from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

'Cruc' meaning 'peak' or 'pointed hill'. 'Shute' is a contraction of ''schute'' which meant slope in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

Biological

The ecology of the site is varied. There are ancient and secondary semi-natural broadleaved woodland; however, the majority is unimproved calcareous grassland with calcareous grassland and acidic dry dwarf-shrub heath. Four of the calcareous grassland communities and two of the woodland types have a restricted distribution in Britain, as does the calcareous grassland/acidic dry dwarf-shrub heath. These support species, four of which are considered nationally rare, while seven of the plant species present are considered notable. Plants of interest include the nationally rare

(''Dianthus gratianopolitanus''),

bedstraw ''Galium'' is a large genus of annual and perennial herbaceous plants in the family Rubiaceae, occurring in the temperate zones of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Some species are informally known as bedstraw. There are over 600 spe ...

(''Galium fleurotii''), dwarf sedge (''Carex humilis'') and

dwarf mouse-ear ''Cerastium pumilum'', the dwarf mouse-ear or European chickweed, is an annual or biannual herbaceous plant, between 2 and 20 cm. high, native to Central and western Europe. The petals of the white flowers are shorter or equally long as the ...

(''Cerastium pumilum''). Rose Wood and King's Wood are ancient woodland sites. King's Wood has

coppiced Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which exploits the capacity of many species of trees to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, which is called a copse, young tree stems are repeated ...

hazel The hazel (''Corylus'') is a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K. (1999). ...

and nationally important small leaved lime. The nationally rare purple gromwell (''Lithospermum purpurocaeruleum'') occurs at Rose Wood.

Geological

Shute Shelve Hill, is largely formed by more resistant Carboniferous Limestone laid down in the

Dinantian Dinantian is the name of a series (stratigraphy), series or Epoch (reference date), epoch from the Lower Carboniferous system (stratigraphy), system in Europe. It can stand for a series of rocks in Europe or the time span in which they were deposit ...

period about 350 million years ago. The hill rises to above sea levels and represents a ridge formed by the southern Limb of a highly eroded

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...

with younger limestones on the lower slopes. Black Rock Limestone is exposed at several sites but is commonly covered by

Burrington Oolite Burrington may refer to: *Burrington, Devon, England *Burrington, Herefordshire, England *Burrington, Somerset, England **Burrington Combe, a limestone gorge and valley near Burrington, Somerset *Manchester, Iowa Manchester is a city in Delawar ...

at the southern end of Crook Peak is considered to be of importance because of its clear, well-stratified sequence of deposits and faunas, all dating from within the Devensian. The cave is below the plateau and above the valley floor. It is named after M.J. Picken who found teeth in earth thrown out of their sets in the area by badgers. A large number of

Middle Palaeolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleoli ...

artefacts, and two

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...

teeth dated to about 55,000 years BP, have been recovered from the cave. Faunal deposits of

spotted hyena The spotted hyena (''Crocuta crocuta''), also known as the laughing hyena, is a hyena species, currently classed as the sole extant member of the genus ''Crocuta'', native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is listed as being of least concern by the IUC ...

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphi ...

, Arctic fox,

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...

woolly rhinoceros The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that was common throughout Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch and survived until the end of the last glacial period. The woolly rhinoceros was a me ...

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...

reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

suslik ''Spermophilus'' is a genus of ground squirrels in the squirrel family. As traditionally defined the genus was very species-rich, ranging through Europe, Asia and North America, but this arrangement was found to be paraphyletic to the certai ...

and northern vole (''

Microtus oeconomus The tundra vole (''Microtus oeconomus'') or root vole is a medium-sized vole found in Northern and Central Europe, Asia, and northwestern North America, including Alaska and northwestern Canada. In the western part of the Netherlands, the tundr ...

'') from approximately 35,000 BP have also been recovered.

is located on Shute Shelve Hill. It is a natural cave system which was mined for its yellow ochre, until the 1920s. The

cave contains fossils of

speleothems A speleothem (; ) is a geological formation by mineral deposition (geology), deposits that accumulate over time in natural caves. Speleothems most commonly form in calcareous caves due to carbonate dissolution reactions. They can take a variety ...

over 350,000 years old.

Barton Camp

Barton Camp, which is on the northern slopes of Crook Peak, is run by the Bristol Children's Help Society, which was founded in 1884 to help needy children. The centre provided residential activity courses. The facilities include classrooms, a sports hall, outdoor pool, playing field and bunkhouse accommodation.

References

{{SSSIs Somerset biological Hills of Somerset Mendip Hills National Trust properties in Somerset Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1952