Cheddar, Somerset, England, United Kingdom

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Cheddar is a large village and civil parish in the Sedgemoor district of the English county of Somerset. It is situated on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Nyland and Bradley Cross.

Cheddar Gorge, on the northern edge of the village, is the largest gorge in the United Kingdom and includes several show caves, including Gough's Cave. The gorge has been a centre of human settlement since Neolithic times including a Saxon palace. It has a temperate climate and provides a unique geological and biological environment that has been recognised by the designation of several Sites of Special Scientific Interest. It is also the site of several limestone quarries. The village gave its name to Cheddar cheese and has been a centre for strawberry growing. The crop was formerly transported on the Cheddar Valley rail line, which closed in the late 1960s but is now a cycle path. The village is now a major tourist destination with several cultural and community facilities, including the Cheddar Show Caves Museum.

The village supports a variety of community groups including religious, sporting and cultural organisations. Several of these are based on the site of The Kings of Wessex Academy, which is the largest educational establishment.

Economy The village gave its name to Cheddar cheese, which is the most popular type of cheese in the United Kingdom. The cheese is now made and consumed world-wide, and only one producer remains in the village.

Since the 1880s, Cheddar's other main produce has been the strawberry, which is grown on the south-facing lower slopes of the Mendip hills. As a consequence of its use for transporting strawberries to market, the since-closed Cheddar Valley line became known as The Strawberry Line after it opened in 1869. The line ran from Yatton to Wells. When the rest of the line was closed and all passenger services ceased, the section of the line between Cheddar and Yatton remained open for goods traffic. It provided a fast link with the main markets for the strawberries in Birmingham and London, but finally closed in 1964, becoming part of the Cheddar Valley Railway Nature Reserve.

Cheddar Ales is a small brewery based in the village, producing beer for local public houses. Tourism is a significant source of employment. Around 15 percent of employment in Sedgemoor is provided by tourism, but within Cheddar it is estimated to employ as many as 1,000 people. The village also has a youth hostel, and a number of camping and caravan sites.

Culture and community Cheddar has a number of active service clubs including Cheddar Vale Lions Club, Mendip Rotary and Mendip Inner Wheel Club. The clubs raise money for projects in the local community and hold annual events such as a fireworks display, duck races in the Gorge, a dragon boat race on the reservoir and concerts on the grounds of the nearby St Michael's Cheshire Home.

In May 2013, a community radio station called Pulse was launched.

Transport The village is situated on the A371 road which runs from Wincanton, to Weston-super-Mare. It is approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) from the route of the M5 motorway with around a 10 miles (16 km) drive to junction 22.

It was on the Cheddar Valley line, a railway line that was opened in 1869 and closed in 1963. It became known as The Strawberry Line because of the large volume of locally-grown strawberries that it carried. It ran from Yatton railway station through Cheddar to Wells (Tucker Street) railway station and joined the East Somerset Railway to make a through route via Shepton Mallet (High Street) railway station to Witham. Sections of the now-disused railway have been opened as the Strawberry Line Trail, which currently runs from Yatton to Cheddar. The Cheddar Valley line survived until the "Beeching Axe". Towards the end of its life there were so few passengers that diesel railcars were sometimes used. The Cheddar branch closed to passengers on 9 September 1963 and to goods in 1964. The line closed in the 1960s, when it became part of the Cheddar Valley Railway Nature Reserve, and part of the National Cycle Network route 26. The cycle route also intersects with the West Mendip Way and various other footpaths.

The principle bus route is hourly service 126 between Weston-super-Mare and Wells operated by First West of England. Other bus routes include the service 668 from Shipham to Street which runs every couple of hours operated by Libra Travel, as well as the college bus service 66 which runs from Axbridge to the Bridgwater Campus of Bridgwater and Taunton College in the mornings and evenings of college term times and is operated by Bakers Dolphin.