Cheddar, a large village 2-1/2 m.  S.E. of Axbridge and 12 S.E. from Weston-super-Mare.  The G.W.R. line from Yatton to Wells has a station here.  There are few to whom Cheddar is not known by name as possessing one of the most remarkable bits of scenery in the British Isles.  The gorge, the sides of which form the famous cliffs, cleaves the edge of the Mendips very abruptly, and at its mouth lies the village.  The most impressive introduction to the sight is to approach Cheddar by road from Priddy and to descend the ravine from the top of the hills, as the cliffs increase in grandeur in the course of the descent, and the best is thus kept till last.  To the majority of sightseers who arrive by train this is, of course, a counsel of perfection, but it is as well that those who ascend from the village should be warned that the top of the pass emerges upon open tableland, and that nothing remarkable awaits them at the end of their climb.  The grand canon is only a quarter of a mile or so from the mouth of the gorge.  Here the road winds in and out like a double S at the foot of the cliffs, which, gracefully festooned with creepers, tower above the spectator like the bastions of some gigantic castle.  Possibly there are higher walls of rock elsewhere, but there are none which, for their height, have the same perpendicularity.  In some cases they rise sheer from the roadway with a vertical face of 450 ft.  Unfortunately an energetically worked quarry has wrecked one side of the ravine, and the clatter of the machinery detracts considerably from the repose of the scene.  Near the entrance of the pass a detached mass of rock roughly resembling a crouching lion guards it like a sentinel.  At its feet is spread a pretty little sheet of water fed by subterranean streams.  In these hidden rivulets we have no doubt the instrument which nature has used to fashion the cliffs.  Geologists assert that the gorge is but the ruins of a collapsed tunnel which once carried the water of some primeval river.  A series of caverns at the entrance of the valley are vigorously exploited by their owners as “side shows” to this exhibition of natural marvels.  Of these caves Cox’s, the one nearest the village, was discovered as early as 1832, and has long been known to excursionists as one of the sights of Cheddar (entrance fee 1s.).  The stalactites within are highly fantastic in shape and peculiarly rich in colour.  There is, however, more to be seen for the money at Gough’s, a little higher up, where a similar charge is made.  A long natural gallery, rendered in places more accessible by excavation, runs for a quarter of a mile into the heart of the rock and opens up a series of vast chambers elaborately hung with stalactites.  When the electric light is thrown on these pendants an almost pantomimic effect is produced.  The scientific interest of the cavern consists in the abundant remains of extinct animals that from time to time have been discovered here.  Amongst other specimens on show at the entrance are the bones of a pre-historic man unearthed in 1903.  At a point along the gallery will be heard the rumble of a hidden river.