An updated version of this profile is online at nationalcharacterareas.co.uk. This pdf is retained for historical and completeness purposes.
The striking landform of the Mendip Hills rises abruptly from the flat landscape of the Somerset Levels and Moors to the south. This Carboniferous Limestone ridge, with its more weather-resistant sandstone peaks, illustrates the classic features of a karst landscape, the result of the response of the soluble limestone to water and weathering, creating surface features, complex underground cave and river systems, gorges, dry valleys, surface depressions, swallets, sink holes and fast-flowing springs. Such natural features have interacted with human influences to result in complex ritual, industrial and agricultural landscapes extending from the prehistoric period to modern times.
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