Anna''s Outing to The Wellington Monument
I have driven up and down the M5 so many times and seen a monument on top of the Blackdown Hills. Each time I passed I wondered what it was and so eventually I got hold of an Ordnance Survey map and identified it as the Wellingotn Monument. I promised myself that one day I would actually NOT drive past but I would make an outing specifically to go and see it. And so today I took my wife Elizabeth and granddaughter Anna for a picnic to Somerset.
We found a small muddy National Trust car park which was filled with half a dozen cars, then tramped along a bumpy puddle strewn track for half a mile between neglected woods towards the unseen monument. What a disappointment! Not only was the monument surrounded by bracken and trees which obscured the hoped for viewpoint over the valley to the north but the monument itself was totally enclosed within a stockade of ten feet high garishly painted steel fencing. The stone obelisk was covered in scaffolding and we were not impressed. Its only when I look at this Francis Frith view taken almost one hundred years ago that I realise just how magnificent the monument could be - an imposing stone folly on the highest land around reached by a climb through woodland.
Today's outing makes a sad contrast with past splendour.
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RE: RE: Anna's Outing to The Wellington Monument
Sorry you were all so disappointed. The National Trust is apparently debating about how to find money to improve things here. The usual story huh?! The monument is structually unsafe now, apparently. But a local art and school project have made a grand job of decorating the current structure designed surrounding the monument to protect the public. Worth paying close attention to, reading the artwork. And yes, it is still possible to walk through fields and lovely woods from the A38 up to Monument so please don't give up on it! You entered it from the 'back way' you see. The car park has now been a little improved too! Maybe I will see you all up there one fine sunny day! Bye.
Comment from Audrey Simpson on Saturday, 3rd April 2010.
RE: RE: Anna''s Outing to The Wellington Monument
Thank you Audrey for the cheery encouragement to look forward! It would be good if the stone masons can make the monument safe. I shall look forward to another visit either this summer or the next and try the alternative approach you recommend - who knows, perhaps the restoration may have started! That would be good.
Comment from John Howard Norfolk on Saturday, 3rd April 2010.
RE: RE: Anna''s Outing to The Wellington Monument
I remember the Welington monument. I lived at Church fields with my grandmother from 1939 to about 1954. There was a time that people would claim they had jumped over the monument. For some reason the top was taken down for repair so the locals could claim they had jumped over the monument. Does anybody else remember this?! My last school was Courtland Road School.
Comment from Morris Porch on Sunday, 28th August 2011.