Serendipity, a Town All About Cheese and an Old Hymn. Yes, There is a Connection.

On one of our earlier journeys in England, we were testing to see how a GPS system worked. This was before smartphones, in the early days of GPS or, as the Brits call it, SatNav.  The system was a GPS receiver connected to my PDA running a navigation program. Back in those days you could never tell which way the SatNav was likely to take you, so it was a bit of an adventure.

In any event, we were moving along a country road about lunchtime when we came upon a sign that said “Cheddar – 5 miles” and an arrow pointing to the left. As it was lunchtime, I asked her if she wanted to visit Cheddar to find a pub and she agreed. We made the turn and a couple of miles along we saw another sign that said, “Cheddar Gorge” where the road started to descend into a valley which then got rather steep pretty quickly. As we continued, the sides of the gorge got steeper and steeper with quite rugged terrain. Eventually we saw cars parked along the sides of the road and what looked like caves going into the side of the gorge. We heard later that, before refrigeration, the cheese makers would store the aging cheese in the caves because the temperature was constant. With the Mendip Hills providing perfect grazing for the local cows, and the caves providing consistent temperatures, the tasty cheese became so famous it became known as the name of the town—Cheddar. Yes, cheddar cheese originated in Cheddar!

Cheddar Yeo, the river that runs through Cheddar

Eventually, we popped out of the gorge and into the town of Cheddar, a lovely English village in Somerset.

We soon found a pub and on the menu was “Ploughman’s Lunch” which we both ordered. A Ploughman’s lunch typically includes Cheddar cheese, some fruit, crusty bread and a bit of Branston Pickle and salad. This one also included pickled onions that we bypassed. We enjoyed every last delicious bite!

As we were waiting for the food to arrive, our eyes caught a framed text on the wall that explained that one of the gorges of the Mendip hills, close to the Cheddar Gorge, was the inspiration for a hymn written by local clergyman, Reverend Augustus Toplady. Reverend Toplady was walking in another gorge nearby, near Burrington, in 1763, when a fierce storm arose. To shelter from the lightning, wind and rain, Reverend Toplady took refuge in a nearby cave. That sheltering became the inspiration for his hymn, “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.”  What a serendipity, to find the home of Cheddar cheese, a beautiful landscape of the Cheddar Gorge cut through the Mendip hills, a fine lunch, and an inspirational snippet of history of a beautiful hymn, all because of a sign and a bit of willingness to make a change in plans.

You never know what a drive in the English countryside will hold.