Not just cheese

There can be few people in the world who haven’t heard of Cheddar… but most of them will think of cheese! Cheddar is home of the cheese, which has been made in the area for at least a thousand years. if you asked all the people who know the cheese, if they know anything else about Cheddar, they will probably say Cheddar Gorge, the deepest gorge in the UK, and at its deepest nearly 450 feet from the dizzy heights to the bottom!

However, there is also a town of Cheddar, a very old Somerset town; apart from the fact that human remains dating back nearly ten thousand years have been found, people have always lived in the area, and the Romans when they arrived, had various farms and settlements nearby.

During the Saxon times, the people who gave the place its name , from ceodor meaning a deep dark place, it was a place of some significance and royal palaces were built there. Saxon palaces would not look much like our modern understanding of such a building, it would have been a wooden structure, a great hall,  with a thatched roof, and would have had outbuildings and defensive features no doubt.

During the middle ages, Cheddar became an important and quite wealthy place, there were up to thirteen water powered mills grinding corn and other grain, and later making paper.

Now if you visit the actual town of cheddar, you’ll find it an interesting and lively place with plenty going on, but many, many interesting buildings going  back into the town’s history.

Look at this lovely and elegant house.

St Andrew’s church has some most interesting features, inside and out – it dates back to the fourteenth century.

My featured image is of the market cross, which dates from the fifteenth century; over the years it has suffered accidental damage, most recently when a taxi drove into it because the driver sneezed!