Combination Buttress

The walk up to Combination Buttress takes you through proper Mendip country, and when you reach the top, you're standing on a limestone escarpment with views that stretch across the Somerset Levels towards Bristol. It's a viewpoint in the truest sense - nowhere fancy, no cafe, just a rocky outcrop where the geology suddenly shows its hand.

This isn't a tourist honeypot. You'll find fell walkers and local ramblers here more than families with pushchairs, which suits the place. The approach is steep enough to separate the casual strollers from the committed, but nothing that requires proper kit. Allow an hour return trip from the nearest car park if you're not racing. The Mendips themselves are the draw here - that sense of actually being at height in a landscape that doesn't feel tame.

Worth doing if you're based at one of the nearby campsites - Somerset Glamping is barely over a mile away, The Batch and Wild Goose are under five miles - and it slots nicely into a morning's walking before breakfast at somewhere in Shipham or heading down towards Weston-super-Mare. The views are best on a clear day, which narrows the window in Somerset winters, but when you get it right, you can see why people keep coming back to the Mendips. It's not spectacular in a postcard sense, but it's proper and honest.