Quantock Hills

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North flank of Beacon Hill in the north of the Quantock Hills in late summer, overlooking the Bristol Channel

The Quantock Hills , also called Quantocks for short , are a range of hills in the southwestern county of Somerset . It connects to the east of Exmoor National Park and extends north of the city of Taunton in a north-westerly direction to the coast of the Bristol Channel . The highest point is the Will's Neck at 365 m . The hilly landscape is characterized by the typically English meadows bordered by hedges. The slopes of the valleys, which are often deeply cut by streams, are covered with deciduous forests. The sparsely populated area was the first in Great Britain to be designated an Area of ​​Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1957 . In addition, at least parts of the Quantocks have five other titles, including a site of special scientific interest .

The Quantock Hills are made up of siliciclastic sedimentary rocks from the Middle and Upper Devonian. These layers were deposited by rivers and lakes over 360 million years ago and subsequently folded during the Variscan orogeny in the late Lower Carboniferous around 330 million years ago.

literature

  • PF Ulf-Hansen, DC Boyce: Exmoor and The Quantock Hills - Natural Area Profile. 1997 ( PDF 420 kB).
  • Hazel Riley: The Historic Landscape of the Quantock Hills. English Heritage, Swindon 2006, ISBN 978-1-905-62429-4 ( digitized version ) (not evaluated).
  • Larry Burrows: Quantock Hills - Area of ​​Outstanding Beauty. Draft Management Plan 2014–19, Habitat Regulations Assessment, Screening Report. 2013 ( PDF 2.6 MB)

Coordinates: 51 ° 9 ′ 0 ″  N , 3 ° 14 ′ 0 ″  W.