North Moor

Lyng is a civil parish in Somerset, England, comprising the villages of West Lyng and East Lyng and the hamlet of Bankland.

Northmoor Green is a village in south central Somerset, England, that is more commonly known as Moorland, and sometimes mistakenly called Fordgate even though it is a separate hamlet. These places being hamlets of Moorland in the civil parish of North Petherton. It is the only village in the United Kingdom with two official names on an OS Map (Northmoor Green or Moorland) Set in the heart of the Somerset levels it has the River Parrett running next to it. It has fewer local amenities than it used to; the village shop, school and post office have closed leaving only a church, village hall and an out of village pub, The Thatchers Arms. The church of St Peter and St John was built in the 1840s.The Village Hall was built to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. It was originally started by the villagers themselves, but had to be pulled down and rebuilt by professional builders, as the walls were not straight. Dances used to be held in it once a month, with refreshments provided by the local Women's Institutes. Before the hall was built, a small amateur dramatic society, The Parrett Players, produced two one-act plays which were held in the local school. The village gained nationwide recognition in February 2014 due to extensive flooding on the Somerset Levels which particularly affected Moorland, when the Environment Agency constructed an earth bank to try to hold back the water. Moorland Court Farmhouse was built in the early 19th century. It is a Grade II listed building. Winslade Farmhouse which is also listed dates from the 17th century, as does Moorland Cottage.North Moor to the south of the village is a 676.3 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. The low-lying area is drained by a series of ditches and the Northmoor Pumping Station.Serious flooding occurred during the Winter flooding of 2013–14 on the Somerset Levels. The Church of St Peter and St John was closed for two years following the flooding and reopened in January 2016.

Balt Moor Wall is an earthwork and listed scheduled ancient monument in Lyng, Somerset, England, situated on the Somerset Levels to the northwest of the River Tone. The site contains the remains of a section of medieval causeway, which now forms a raised embankment between 6 metres (20 ft) and 10 metres (33 ft) wide and up to 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) high. The structure, which English Heritage refers to as "a rare example of medieval engineering", appears to have been built to protect the Salt Moor from the flooding of the River Tone in the Athelney-Lyng gap.

The Somerset Space Walk is a sculpture trail model of the Solar System, located in Somerset, England. The model uses the towpath of the 22-kilometre (14-mile) Bridgwater and Taunton Canal to display a model of the Sun and its planets in their proportionally correct sizes and distances apart. Unusually for a Solar System model, there are two sets of planets, so that the diameter of the orbits is represented. Aware of the inadequacies of printed pictures of the Solar System, the inventor Pip Youngman designed the Space Walk as a way of challenging people's perceptions of space and experiencing the vastness of the Solar System. The model is built to a scale of 1:530,000,000, meaning that one millimetre on the model equates to 530 kilometres. The Sun is sited at Higher Maunsel Lock, and one set of planets is installed in each direction along the canal towards Taunton and Bridgwater; the distance between the Sun and each model of Pluto being 11 kilometres (6.8 mi). For less hardy walkers, the inner planets are within 430 metres (1,410 ft) of the Sun, and near to the Maunsel Canal Centre (and tea shop) at Lower Maunsel Lock, where a more detailed leaflet about the model is available.The Space Walk was opened on 9 August 1997 by British astronomer Heather Couper. In 2007, a project team from Somerset County Council refurbished some of the models.

The Bridgwater and Taunton Canal is a canal in the south-west of England between Bridgwater and Taunton, opened in 1827 and linking the River Tone to the River Parrett. There were a number of abortive schemes to link the Bristol Channel to the English Channel by waterway in the 18th and early 19th centuries. These schemes followed the approximate route eventually taken by the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal, but the canal was instead built as part of a plan to link Bristol to Taunton by waterway. The early years of operation were marred by a series of legal disputes, which were resolved when the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal Company and the Conservators, who managed the River Tone Navigation, agreed that the Canal Company should take over the Tone Navigation. The canal originally terminated at a basin at Huntworth, to the east of Bridgwater, but was later extended to a floating harbour at Bridgwater Docks on its western edge. Financially this was a disaster, as the extension was funded by a mortgage, and the arrival of the railways soon afterwards started the demise of the canal. The canal was rescued from bankruptcy by the Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1866. Despite commercial traffic ceasing in 1907, the infrastructure was maintained in good order, and the canal was used for the transport of potable water from 1962. The Countryside Act 1968 provided a framework for Somerset County Council to start the restoration of the canal as a leisure facility, which was completed in 1994, when the canal was reopened throughout. Bridgwater Docks have been restored as a marina, but there is no navigable connection to the River Parrett, as the canal still transports drinking water for the people of Bridgwater.

Petherton Park (also known as North Petherton Park or Newton Park) was a Deer park around North Petherton within the English county of Somerset. The origins are unclear but the area was part of an earlier Royal Forest stretching from the River Parrett to the Quantock Hills. According to the late 13th century Hundred Rolls, King Henry II of England (d. 1189) gave William of Wrotham lands at North Petherton. During the reigns of Henry II (1154–1189) and Richard I (1189–1199), the royal forest of Petherton Park, was held from the crown by Osbert and William Dacus by grand serjeanty of being the king's Forester of Petherton. William de Plessis, who died in 1274 was granted Petherton Park and it was inherited by his son Richard de Barbeflote or Plessis.The park was the only part of the royal estate which had not been granted away from royal ownership by the end of the 13th century. From 1391 until his death in 1400 the poet Geoffrey Chaucer was one of the foresters. He was succeeded by his son Thomas Chaucer. At various points during the 13th and 14th centuries, the park was the source of venison for royal feasts. The park was also a source of timber, which was granted by the king often to religious houses such as the Buckland Priory and the Friary and Nunnery in Ilchester. Between 1513 and 1535 Sir William Courtenay (d.1535) of Powderham, Devon was the keeper of North Petherton Park.The park was visited by John Leland in 1538 who recorded that there were around 2000 deer in the park. Its extent was shown on the map of 1575 by Christopher Saxton and again in a map of 1610 by John Speed.In 1583 the park was recorded as being owned by absentee landlords and falling into decline, although it was still a source of timber for sale. In 1584 part of the park was enclosed and leased. In 1638 the keeper Sir Thomas Wroth, of the Wroth baronets who had held the park since the reign of Elizabeth I, started to break up the park and by 1665 it had been divided into 11 different holdings, and by 1676 there were 15.The Alfred Jewel, an Anglo-Saxon artefact made of enamel and quartz enclosed in gold, was discovered in the park in 1693, and is now one of the most popular exhibits at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It has been dated from the late 9th century. It was made in the reign of Alfred the Great and is inscribed "AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN", meaning 'Alfred ordered me made'. The jewel was once attached to a rod, probably of wood, at its base. After decades of scholarly discussion, it is now "generally accepted" that the jewel's function was to be the handle for a pointer stick for following words when reading a book. It is an exceptional and unusual example of Anglo-Saxon jewellery. There is a replica of the jewel in the Church of St Mary, North Petherton. Maunsel House at North Newton, which was within the area of the earlier park, was built in the late 14th or early 15th century. Between 1648 and 1726 it was owned by the Bacon family who turned some the land into gardens, orchards and a fish pond.The house which takes the name of Petherton Park was built in the 17th century. It is a Grade II listed building. It is now known as Petherton Park Farmhouse and has been divided into two separate houses. The two storey building has an eleven bay front. Two gatepiers at the entry to the site are also listed.

Curry and Hay Moors (grid reference ST323273) is a 472.8 hectare (1168.1 acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset, notified in 1992. Curry and Hay Moors form part of the complex of grazing marshes known as the Somerset Levels and Moors. The low-lying site is situated adjacent to the River Tone which annually overtops, flooding the fields in winter. Soils are predominantly alluvial clays overlying Altcar series peats. The flora and fauna of the ditches and rhynes is of national importance. Over 70 aquatic and bankside vascular plants have been recorded including frogbit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae), flowering rush (Butomus umbellatus), wood club-rush (Scirpus sylvaticus) and lesser water-plantain (Baldellia ranunculoides). Over 100 species of aquatic invertebrates inhabit the ditches including one nationally rare soldier fly, (Odontomyia ornata) and 13 nationally scarce species including the water beetles Agabus uliginosus, Hydaticus transversalis and Helophorus nanus. In winter the flooded fields provide food for large numbers of waterfowl with several thousand northern lapwing, hundreds of common snipe and smaller numbers of golden plover and dunlin regularly present. Over two hundred Bewick's swans have been recorded, making the site an internationally important wintering ground for this species. Raptor species such as short-eared owl, merlin and peregrine regularly hunt over the site in winter. Vertebrate species present include barred grass snake and common frog. Eurasian otters are regularly recorded on the site.The moor was flooded during the winter flooding of 2013–14 on the Somerset Levels.

The Westonzoyland Pumping Station Museum of Steam Power and Land Drainage is a small industrial heritage museum dedicated to steam powered machinery at Westonzoyland in the English county of Somerset. It is a Grade II* listed building. The museum is housed in an 1830 brick-built pumping station which was the first of several similar pumping stations to be built on the Somerset Levels which are prone to flooding. The main attraction is the 1861 Easton and Amos steam engine and pump, the only one still in its original location and in working order. The museum, which is run by a charity, also restores and displays a number of other steam engines and pumps. The steam for the moving exhibits is provided by a Marshall portable boiler. The Westonzoyland Light Railway, a short 2 ft (610 mm) narrow-gauge railway runs the length of the site and is used to carry wood for the boiler.

Maunsel House in the English county of Somerset was built in the late 14th or early 15th century. The house stands south of the hamlet of North Newton, in the parish of North Petherton. It is the family seat of the Slade baronets and is a Grade II* listed building.

Athelney is a village located between the villages of Burrowbridge and East Lyng in the Sedgemoor district of Somerset, England. The name is believed to be derived from the Old English æþeling meaning "prince" + -ey meaning "isle". The village is best known for once being the fortress hiding place of King Alfred the Great, from where he went on to defeat the Great Heathen Army at the Battle of Edington in May 878.

Athelney Abbey, established in the county of Somerset, England, was founded by King Alfred in 888, as a religious house for monks of the Order of St. Benedict. It was dedicated to "Our Blessed Saviour, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Egelwine".

The Anglican Church of St Peter in North Newton within the English county of Somerset has a tower believed to date from Saxon times. It is a Grade II* listed building.