We headed out to Brean Down on the Somerset coastline. The Down is 1.5 miles long and 100m above sea level at its highest point and nestled between two beautiful beaches: Weston Super Mare and Brean Sands.
Our adventure was to walk to the end of the Down to visit Brean Fort, built in 1870 as part of a chain of forts along the Bristol Channel to protect against the French invasion. The Fort is steeped in history and the kids loved exploring. It’s well intact remains including the site of a Roman Temple, an Iron Age hill fort and WW2 machine gun emplacement point.
Best of all, it’s free to explore!
We visited at the end of May and the Down was carpeted in Bluebells and seemed to be a haven for caterpillars and birds.
Our starting was the National Trust carpark (£2 parking and cafe/shop/toilet facilities) overlooking Brean sands beach.
Brean Down Road
Burnham-on-Sea
TA8
England
Our walk took us a leisurely 2.5 hours. Here’s how we got on…
We started in the car park and headed up the steps to the top of the Down.
After a steep climb, we stopped to look back at the view.
We came across a WW2 machine emplacement.
We discover the Down carpeted in bluebells.
And we headed off to the furthest point out to sea in search of the fort.
We took time to look back at the view over Somerset.
The flowers were beautiful.
It was an ideal place for a bug hunt.
We then found the fort and explored.
There were lots of nooks and crannies to explore.
Or just to sit and contemplate.
We then discovered the remains of the search-light tower at the very tip of the Down.
We scrambled across the rocks for a closer look.
We climbed up into the search-light tower and looked back at where we had come from.
After eating our picnic we headed back across the Brean.
Our walk was a beautiful one and full of exciting places to discover and explore. We finished our walk where we had started and bought ice creams from the shop and played on the beach. We will most certainly be revisiting this gorgeous spot to spend more time there.
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