Driving northward on the M5 motorway, the Mendip Hills are passed on the right hand side.  Visible to the east, there is a deep cut in the steep ridge of the hills, Cheddar Gorge.  If one approaches from the north, a less dramatic gap in the hills is found at Burrington Combe.

Burrington Combe is the place where it was said that the Anglican priest Augustus Toplady took shelter in a cleft in the rock in order to find shelter from a storm.  The experience was said to have inspired …