Somerset’s growing cycle network bears fruit: a ride on the Strawberry Line

09.05.2024 - 10:47 / theguardian.com

It’s a noise the former railway tunnel probably hadn’t heard in a while. Somewhere in the dark is a hooting part-owl, part-forlorn steam train. My sister Ele has stopped on her bike to blow determinedly across her cupped hands like a flute. As she recreates this long-gone sound, I pedal on through the cool, damp air. Water drips steadily from the stalactite-coated brickwork as my front light illuminates pedestrians and their dogs looming from the echoing shadows.

We are cycling the Strawberry Line, a 10.75-mile, mostly off-road cycling and walking route from Yatton to Cheddar in north Somerset, on a sunny spring morning. White blackthorn flowers blossom in the hedges, and puddles splatter us with brick-coloured mud. I always love the thought that this rich red soil was formed when Britain basked close to the equator, before migrating north, along with Europe and North America.

The Strawberry Line was named after the fruit the former railway carried from this fertile red soil to London, via the Somerset and Dorset line. It also forms part of National Cycle Network (NCN) route 26. The train line was decommissioned in the 1960s under Beeching’s axe. It was a blow for local transport, but it brought us many of today’s best-loved NCN routes. Complete with cuttings and tunnels, the Strawberry Line makes for a flat and direct, almost entirely traffic-free, ride.

Between Beeching’s axe and the founding of the NCN in the 1980s, some railway land was commandeered for other purposes, which means there are some on-road stretches and awkward road crossings on today’s cycling and walking routes. These are slowly being upgraded by Sustrans – the charitable custodian of the network – along with volunteers, the council and a pot pourri of others. The Department for Transport may fund improvements for an awkward main road crossing near Axbridge in 2025.

It is the dream of two NCN founders, John Grimshaw and Caroline Levett – along with their current organisation, Greenways and Cycleroutes – to insert the Strawberry Line into a 76-mile route circumnavigating the county, taking in the famous Bristol and Bath Railway Path, Two Tunnels Greenway and the River Avon Trail. The Somerset Circle is already two-thirds complete, with new segments recently opened around Shepton Mallet, and a new link connecting Westbury-sub-Mendip and Easton. I helped rebuild a couple of walls near Shepton as a volunteer during two of Greenways’ annual work camps. There are also spurs under construction to towns and cities along the way.

Before setting off from Yatton station, we discover a puncture in Ele’s rear tyre. Strawberry Line Cycle Project, which hires out bikes for all abilities from the station car park, lets us use its track pump after