B3134
B3134 | ||||
Location Map ( geo) | ||||
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From: | Burrington (ST477595) | |||
To: | Miners Arms Crossroads (ST544523) | |||
Distance: | 6.8 miles (10.9 km) | |||
Meets: | A368, B3371, B3135 | |||
Highway Authorities | ||||
Traditional Counties | ||||
Route outline (key) | ||||
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The B3134 is perhaps most famous as the road that climbs through Burrington Combe; however, there is a lot more to it than that, as it winds its way across the Mendips to the old Miners Arms near Priddy.
Starting on the A368 in Burrington, we head south across fields with the village centre off to the left and then start to climb up through the combe, gently at first but steepening as we progress. The entrance to the combe is marked by the former garden centre and the neighbouring Burrington Inn but then the combe contracts quickly with steeply sloping sides dropping down to the road, occasionally in small cliffs. One of these is home to the Rock of Ages, made famous by the Hymn written by a local Vicar in the late 18th Century.
Burrington Combe never develops into the high-cliffed gorge that its compatriot at Cheddar is, despite being formed by similar processes. However, it is still a dramatic funnel to drive up, slowly opening up as Cheddar Gorge does as you approach the Mendip Plateau. Once that plateau is reached, the road loses the twists and turns of the ascent and opens out into a series of long fast straights, although it is a busy road so limiting overtaking.
The road is still climbing through these straights, although almost imperceptibly at times, until a slight summit is reached at Nordrach above Ubley. It's then slightly downhill to the crossroads where the B3371 meets from the south, having forked off the B3135 at the top of Cheddar Gorge. This, therefore, is where many tourists are turning in order to visit both natural attractions in one go!
There is still a little more to the B3134 however, with another series of straights running almost parallel to the line of the Roman Road to Charterhouse. Ahead now is the Castle of Comfort Inn, where two roads join from the left and our route turns to the right at a crooked crossroads. It is then just a short blast south to the end of the route at the Miners Arms Crossroads on the B3135. The former pub here took its name from the lead mining that went on for many centuries high on the Mendips.