Tealham and Tadham Moor: Seeking The Wilderness Nearby

Since boyhood, I’ve been fascinated by wilderness, not as a place at first, but as an idea. One Christmas in 1988, I unwrapped a hardback guide called Wild Walks, a book that chronicled some of the most remote landscapes in the UK. Its photographs carried me far beyond the edge of the suburbs, and I spent hours poring over them. As a Scout, those images fed a growing love for the outdoors, even though living just outside London meant true wilderness was always out of reach. It became both a longing and a private fantasy.

Many writers have explored this subject, but one book I return to often is Robert Macfarlane’s The Wild Places. His reflections on whether any truly wild places remain in Britain helped articulate something I’d felt since childhood: the pull towards landscapes that feel bigger than us and indifferent to our presence.

A dictionary defines wilderness as “an area devoid of human habitation, cultivation, or significant use.” In other words, a place inhospitable to long-term human existence. The only time I’ve felt close to that definition was at sea, hundreds of miles from land and surrounded by nothing in every direction. The vastness was awe-inspiring and often threatening. But for the purposes of this blog, the Atlantic isn’t the wilderness I’m seeking.

I often think back to a road trip along Scotland’s western coast about ten years ago. Camping by the Fairy Pools on Skye, plunging into Fingal’s Cave, and wild camping on Mull still carry the same sense of freedom. Reflecting on them now, I feel a renewed urge to understand what wilderness means to me today, and whether its essence can be found closer to home, even in gentler forms.

Somerset offers plenty of opportunities to explore its varied landscape. With a bit of map study and local knowledge, it felt right to return to the Levels and Moors for this instalment. This land, so often surrendered to winter floods, comes alive in spring and summer. The flatness of the moor becomes a green canvas splashed with yellow. Long, straight drove roads and rhynes impose a sense of order, yet the land still feels quietly self-governing.

Starting from Mudgley, I set out on a four-mile loop. The heat was already draining before I’d taken a step, and shade was scarce. Tracks that had recently been quagmires now stretched ahead as dusty avenues. Perhaps it’s a trick of the mind, but walking in a straight line always makes distance feel exaggerated. The drove led me towards Tadham and Tealham Moor, exactly the kind of place I’d hoped to find.

With Brent Knoll rising like a shadowy pimple on the horizon, the sense of space was immense. This land, which becomes an inland sea each winter, turns fertile and generous in summer, feeding the cattle that graze here. I paused to watch them alongside their ever-present egret companions. Overhead, buzzards and sparrowhawks patrolled while birdsong threaded the warm air.

The North Drain bisects Tealham Moor, carrying water towards the River Brue and eventually the sea. Despite its functional purpose, it is a beautiful waterway. Mute swans, mallards, and herons announced themselves as I stopped to watch. Lily pads, dotted with yellow flowers, were beginning to carpet the surface. It was here that something clarified. Wilderness, I realised, isn’t defined solely by remoteness or by how badly things might go wrong. It can exist in quieter places. I was alone, and the solitude felt earned. Wilderness, to my mind, is a space where guests feel uninvited, where your presence is incidental and you are free simply to be.

I’ve seen this landscape in winter, when low clouds press down and the moor feels bleak and faintly hostile. But not today. The drove offered a circuit of uniformity that still held interest. I couldn’t name much of the birdsong, and knew I was missing many of the details around me, but it didn’t matter. I let my hand drift through the grass, kept my head up, and paid attention to a place that can seem uninspiring at first glance.

Over the past year, I’ve done a great deal of soul-searching, trying to understand not just how I function but why. Looking back, I see that I developed self-help strategies as a child without ever realising it. My love of wild walk books and atlases wasn’t simply a hobby. It was a way of finding quiet, of stepping away from the noise of thoughts that never quite settled. Wilderness became both a physical landscape and a mental refuge. Today’s walk reaffirmed that truth, reminding me that this appetite will always need feeding.

If wilderness is as much an inner landscape as an outer one, then each of us walks with our own map. I’d love to know where yours leads you, and what you find there.

As I neared the end of the loop, I encountered an inquisitive Highland cow with only one horn. She seemed entirely unconcerned by the missing appendage. How she coped with the heat beneath that thick coat was beyond me. Perhaps the promise of a drop of Wilkins’ cider from the nearby farm was keeping her cool.