Ubley Today

Ubley Today

Ubley Parish sits in the Yeo valley at the west end of the Chew Valley.  It is bordered to the north and south with ridges of hills, most significantly the Mendips to the south.  It sits within the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and close to Blagdon Lake.

Ubley is an attractive village set mostly on the valley floor but rises up on the lower slopes of the Mendip Hills to the south.

The surrounding valley landscape is of farmland with small and medium sized fields largely for grazing.  Fields are separated by well-kept hedgerows with intermittent mature trees.  The whole area is rich in wildlife and is rural and unspoilt in character.

There are magnificent views from the slopes of the Mendips across the Parish and as far as South Wales to the west and the hills above Bath to the east.

There is quite a lot of greenery throughout the village.  There are many mature trees, mostly in gardens and the Churchyard in and around the Conservation Area.  The roads are lined by a mixture of hedgerows and walls, the latter of which are of local stone.  The slopes of the Mendip scarp are densely wooded with an area known as Ubley Wood.

The centre of the village is at The Cross, outside the charming 13th century St Bartholomew’s Church.  There is also a Primary School and a large village hall.

There are two main green spaces in the village.  Firstly, the Glebe is a field leased from the Diocese, which is used for unstructured play and by the Village Primary School for sports and recreation.  Secondly there is a small space, known as the Amenity Area, immediately behind the Village Hall.

The village is broadly in an “L” shape defined by The Street with other lanes winding off.   It has an eclectic mix of housing.  In what is a small village of about 130 properties there is a mix of terraced, semi-detached and detached houses.  Many of the houses in the Conservation Area are detached and built of stone.  There is an area of mid-20th century houses and bungalows and also a set of white rendered villas in a Spanish style.  For the most part, though, houses are of a similar scale and height with nothing over two storeys tall.

Most of the roofs are brown or reddish-brown tiles although there are a few in a natural slate.  The pitch of most of the house roofs is similar although there are a few exceptions that are steeper.

Nearly all houses have chimneys.  Porches are a fairly common addition.  Most properties have their own parking but several, as with the school and Church necessitate parking in the road.

There are mercifully few direction and road signs helping to retain the very rural feel.   The roads leading into the Village from three sides are narrow and without pavements.  There is a straighter section of The Street through the village, which has a pavement for about a quarter of its length.  There are five small roads leading off The Street all of which are short and are dead ends.