Clevedon

Clevedon is a town of 21,000 people (2019) in Somerset along the Severn Estuary. It was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086. Clevedon grew in the Victorian period as a seaside resort.

Understand

The seafront has ornamental gardens, a Victorian bandstand and other attractions. Salthouse Field has a light railway running round the perimeter and is used for donkey rides in the summer. The shore consists of pebbled beaches and low rocky cliffs, with an old harbour at the western edge of the town, at the mouth of the Land Yeo. The rocky beach has been designated as the Clevedon Shore Geological Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Clevedon Pier, which opened in 1869, is one of the earliest surviving examples of a Victorian pier. Other landmarks include Walton Castle, Clevedon Court, the Clock Tower, and the Curzon Cinema.

Climate

Clevedon, like the rest of South West England, has a temperate climate, generally wetter and milder than the rest of the country. The annual mean temperature is about 10 °C (50 °F). Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme than in most of the United Kingdom due to the adjacent sea temperatures. The summer months of July and August are the warmest, with mean daily maxima around 21 °C (70 °F). In winter, mean minimum temperatures of 1 °C (34 °F) or 2 °C (36 °F) are common.

Get in

• By Motorway, Junction 20 of the M5
• The nearest railway station is Yatton on the Bristol to Exeter line, served by Great Western Railway.

See

• The seafront runs about half a mile from the pier to Salthouse Field, with ornamental gardens, a Victorian bandstand, a bowling green, tennis courts, crazy golf and other amusements. Marine Lake, once a Victorian swimming pool, is used for boating and for a small festival once a year where people can try out new sports.
• Salthouse Field has a light railway round its perimeter and is used for summer donkey rides.
• 1 Clevedon Pier, The Toll House, The Beach, BS21 7QU, ☏ +44 1275 878846, fax: +44 1275 790077, enquiries@clevedonpier.com. A classic Victorian pleasure pier  
• 2 Clevedon Court, Tickenham Road, BS21 6QU, ☏ +44 1275 872257, clevedoncourt@nationaltrust.org.uk.  

Do

• The shore at Clevedon marries pebbled beaches and low rocky cliffs, with the old harbour at the western edge of the town, at the mouth of the Land Yeo river. The rocky beach has been designated as Clevedon Shore geological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is the side of a mineralised fault running east–west adjacent to the pier and forms a small cliff feature in dolomitic conglomerate on the north side of Clevedon Beach, containing cream to pink baryte along with sulphides. Minerals identified include haematite, chalcopyrite, tennantite, galena, tetrahedrite, bornite, pyrite, marcasite, enargite and sphalerite. Secondary alteration of this has produced idaite, Covellite and other Copper sulphides.
• "Poets' Walk" is a footpath round Wain's Hill and Church Hill to the south-west of the seafront. The upper town contains many other footpaths through parks and wooded areas laid out in the 19th century. The name recalls poets who visited Clevedon, including Coleridge in 1795 and Tennyson in 1834. The local nature reserve covers Church Hill and Wain's Hill and includes calcareous grassland, coastal scrub and woodland.

Sleep

• 1 Walton Park Hotel (Best Western), Wellington Terrace, BS21 7BL, ☏ +44 1275 874253. 

Go next

• Portishead
• Bristol
• Avonmouth
• Watchet
• Weston-super-Mare