Brent Knoll in Somerset. A conspicuous landmark rising above the Levels.

Brent Knoll rises 450 feet above the Somerset Levels only 2.5 miles from the coast at Burnham-on-Sea.  An outlier of the Mendip Hills, it is a well-known landmark to the millions of travellers who use the M5, A38 and A370 as well as rail passengers on the Bristol to Taunton and Penzance line.  All those routes pass within one mile of the foot of the Knoll. 

On a recent journey up the A38 to Churchill my wife noticed the effect of heavy rainfall, deposited by storm Angus, on the fields north east of Brent Knoll.  Approaching the village of Cross she saw the waterlogged fields had taken on the appearance of a lake. 

I was reminded of a photograph I took in 2012 when a spell of heavy rain - storms weren’t given names in those days - had flooded those same fields in similar fashion.  The photo was taken from a lay-by, on the slopes of Shute Shelve Hill, on the A371 just a few hundred yards east of the junction with the A38.

Brent Knoll viewed from the slopes of Shute Shelve Hill after a spell of heavy rain in the spring of 2012.  The Quantock Hills are on the horizon.

Little wonder that the Romans knew Brent Knoll as “The Mount of Frogs”, as it stood surrounded by water and marshes before the Somerset Levels were drained, a process undertaken in earnest by the monasteries of Glastonbury, Athelney and Muchelney during the Middle Ages.