The Mells River flows through the eastern

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath, Somerset, Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the River Frome, Somerset ...

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

, England. It rises at Gurney Slade and flows east joining the River Frome at

Frome Frome ( ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills and on the River Frome, south of Bath. The population of the parish was 28,559 in 2021. Frome was one of the largest tow ...

. The river forms one of the boundaries of Mells Park, a country house estate in Mells. A few kilometres downstream it flows between the pre-Roman fortifications of

Wadbury Camp Wadbury Camp is a promontory fort in Somerset, England that protected the mining district of the Mendip Hills in pre-Roman times. It seems to have been an outwork of the larger Tedbury Camp. Location Wadbury camp lies on a ridge to the north o ...

to the north and Tedbury Camp to the south. The river flows through the western part of the Harridge Woods nature reserve. Mells River also powered the Old Ironstone Works and several other mills set up by James Fussell III in 1744. It is now a 0.25

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

biological Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

, as it is used by both Greater and

Lesser Horseshoe Bat The lesser horseshoe bat (''Rhinolophus hipposideros'') is a type of small European and North African insectivorous bat, related to its larger cousin, the greater horseshoe bat. As with all horseshoe bats, the species gets its name from its dist ...

s. Vobster Inn Bridge, which carries the lane over the Mells River, is dated 1764 and is Grade II listed. At Great Elm the Murtry Aqueduct, built around 1795, carried the

Dorset and Somerset Canal The Dorset and Somerset Canal was a proposed canal in southwestern England. The main line was intended to link Poole, Dorset with the Kennet and Avon Canal near Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire. A branch was to go from the main line at Frome to the ...

over the river. The river takes the outfall from

Whatley Quarry Whatley Quarry, is a limestone quarry owned by Hanson plc, near the village of Whatley on the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England. The quarry exhibits pale to dark grey Carboniferous Limestone with small area of overlying horizontally bedded buff ...

. Downstream of the outfall is the Mells River Sink. This acts as a spring when the water table is high and as a sink into underground aquifers, through the

Limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

, when the water table is low. Water tracing showed this to be part of an underground part of the river long. Archaeological investigations found the remains of

woolly rhinoceros The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene epoch. The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. The woolly rhinoceros was larg ...

bones and a 1st-century bronze brooch.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Somerset 2Mells Mells, Somerset