Photo: Roger Cornfoot · CC BY-SA 2.055% of the land within 5 km of Shipham is National Park or National Landscape
The Mendip Hills National Landscape reaches the edge of Shipham. 30 km of footpaths run through the village and the kilometre around it, 4.0 for every square kilometre. Parks and playing fields in Shipham add up to 1.2 ha for every 1,000 residents; the typical UK town has 2.1. Shipham grades B− for the outdoors. A character grade: it isn’t part of the overall grade.
What kind of outdoors village is Shipham?
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and bad.
Shipham’s strongest suit is protected countryside on the doorstep, followed by dense footpaths. Where it falls short is park space per person.
Shipham grades B− for the outdoors
Each chart is every UK town of 1,000 or more on one measure: the green bar is Shipham, the dashed line the typical town. The number is the share of towns it beats; the five are averaged and the average ranked again.
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Graded, never part of the overall grade (like History and Civic life). It measures what is mapped: OS Open Greenspace leaves out woodland and open-access land that isn’t a park, and OpenStreetMap’s rural paths are more complete in some places than others.
Shipham is 29th of 60 UK villages its size for the outdoors
The 60 UK towns and cities of 1,000 to 1,200 people with an Outdoors Grade. Hover a dot for its figures; tap one for its page.
Against villages its size, Shipham stands out most for path per km²: only 5 of the other 59 have more. It falls furthest behind on park space per resident, where 49 of the others do better.
Show as a table
| Town | Outdoors | Green space | Near a park | Path per km² | Protected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illogan Cornwall | A+ | 3 | 100% | 3.2 | 7% |
| 2 | Polgooth Cornwall | A+ | 7 | 100% | 2 | 13% |
| 3 | Fairlands Surrey | A+ | 2.8 | 100% | 5 | 11% |
| 4 | Chagford Devon | A+ | 4.7 | 100% | 2.5 | 98% |
| 5 | Masham North Yorkshire | A+ | 3.7 | 100% | 3 | 44% |
| 6 | Tolvaddon Cornwall | A | 11.9 | 24% | 4.5 | 9% |
| 7 | Ditchling East Sussex | A | 7.4 | 77% | 4 | 57% |
| 8 | Leigh Kent | A | 3 | 100% | 2.6 | 49% |
| 9 | Moston Cheshire | A | 7.8 | 100% | 3.8 | 0% |
| 10 | Charnock Richard Lancashire | A | 29.8 | 100% | 3.3 | 0% |
| 11 | Barns Green West Sussex | A | 6.6 | 100% | 3.5 | 0% |
| 12 | Horsted Keynes West Sussex | A− | 2.2 | 100% | 2.3 | 83% |
| 13 | Mayfield Staffordshire | A− | 1.9 | 100% | 3.3 | 14% |
| 14 | Grange Moor West Yorkshire | A− | 4.3 | 100% | 2.8 | 0% |
| 15 | Llanddulas Clwyd | B+ | 1.7 | 100% | 2.4 | 0% |
| 16 | North Thoresby Lincolnshire | B+ | 3.7 | 100% | 0.8 | 21% |
| 17 | Bethel Gwynedd | B+ | 1.6 | 100% | 1.4 | 10% |
| 18 | Grassington North Yorkshire | B+ | 1.3 | 79% | 4.1 | 100% |
| 19 | South Bents Tyne and Wear | B+ | 4.9 | 62% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 20 | Borth Dyfed | B | 3.1 | 74% | 1.2 | 0% |
| 21 | Upperthong West Yorkshire | B | 1.7 | 65% | 4.7 | 26% |
| 22 | Cropston Leicestershire | B | 3.1 | 100% | 2.2 | 0% |
| 23 | Barwick and Stoford Somerset | B | 6.4 | 71% | 2.2 | 5% |
| 24 | Jacobs Well Surrey | B | 1.4 | 77% | 4.7 | 8% |
| 25 | Milborne St Andrew Dorset | B | 3.3 | 71% | 2.1 | 33% |
| 26 | Bedlinog Mid Glamorgan | B | 4.1 | 100% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 27 | Goudhurst Kent | B | 1.5 | 100% | 1.2 | 65% |
| 28 | Challock Kent | B− | 3 | 62% | 2 | 88% |
| 29 | Shipham Somerset | B− | 1.2 | 63% | 4 | 55% |
| 30 | Harpur Hill Derbyshire | B− | 3.1 | 31% | 2.3 | 60% |
| 31 | Roydon (South Norfolk) Norfolk | B− | 4.3 | 50% | 4 | 0% |
| 32 | Beaumaris Gwynedd | B− | 2.7 | 30% | 0.8 | 18% |
| 33 | Beeford East Riding of Yorkshire | C+ | 3.9 | 100% | 0.4 | 0% |
| 34 | Easton on the Hill Northamptonshire | C+ | 2.5 | 100% | 1.7 | 0% |
| 35 | Castlethorpe Buckinghamshire | C+ | 3.5 | 72% | 2.9 | 0% |
| 36 | Whimple Devon | C+ | 5.2 | 70% | 0.9 | 1% |
| 37 | Brinklow Warwickshire | C+ | 1.7 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 38 | Lower Shiplake Oxfordshire | C+ | 3 | 0% | 2 | 28% |
| 39 | Ashchurch Gloucestershire | C | 2 | 59% | 2.2 | 21% |
| 40 | Bow Street Dyfed | C | 3.1 | 33% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 41 | Woodhouses Greater Manchester | C | 2.6 | 40% | 3.5 | 0% |
| 42 | Bow Devon | C | 1.9 | 100% | 1.1 | 0% |
| 43 | Baldwin's Gate Staffordshire | C− | 1.3 | 100% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 44 | Glazebury Cheshire | C− | 5.1 | 58% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 45 | Milverton Somerset | C− | 2.1 | 70% | 2.4 | 0% |
| 46 | Beachley Gloucestershire | C− | 0.3 | 0% | 1.2 | 14% |
| 47 | Bildeston Suffolk | C− | 0.5 | 100% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 48 | Farmborough Somerset | C− | 2 | 38% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 49 | Cawston Norfolk | D | 2.7 | 71% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 50 | Broad Oak (Wealden) East Sussex | D | 0.1 | 0% | 1.4 | 96% |
| 51 | Wattstown Mid Glamorgan | D | 3.1 | 26% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 52 | Landrake Cornwall | D | 0.9 | 0% | 0.6 | 38% |
| 53 | Reawla Cornwall | D | 0.2 | 0% | 2 | 3% |
| 54 | Stickney Lincolnshire | D | 2.4 | 0% | 1 | 0% |
| 55 | Berryfield Wiltshire | D− | 0.4 | 53% | 2.1 | 0% |
| 56 | Pilton Somerset | D− | 1.2 | 28% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 57 | Moulton Chapel Lincolnshire | D− | 1.5 | 60% | 0 | 0% |
| 58 | Llanfyllin Powys | D− | 0 | 0% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 59 | Great Horwood Buckinghamshire | D− | 0.8 | 0% | 1 | 0% |
| 60 | Whaplode Lincolnshire | D− | 0.4 | 0% | 0.2 | 0% |
Parks, footpaths & countryside
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is Shipham’s built-up area.
6 in 10 Shipham residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park
Each square is 1 in 100 residents: green lives within 400 m of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace).
About 400 people live further than that. Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees; 4 playgrounds are mapped in and around the village, about one for every 276 residents.
National Parks and National Landscapes around Shipham
Protected landscapes within 30 km, by direction and distance from the edge of the built-up area; circle size shows each one’s area. National Landscapes were called Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty until 2023.
Mendip Hills
55% of the land within 5 km of Shipham is National Park or National Landscape, more than 93% of UK towns.
4 waymarked walks pass through or near Shipham
30 km of footpaths, bridleways and rights of way are mapped in Shipham and the kilometre around it, 4.0 km for every square kilometre (the typical UK town has 3.0). Bars show each route’s kilometres within 2 km of the village.
4 regional routes pass through, including the The Mendip Trail, The Butcombe Trail, Limestone Link and West Mendip Way.
Waymarked walks are OpenStreetMap walking routes. Public rights of way are only as complete as the map in each area.
The best walking months in Shipham: May to July and September
The village’s 1991–2020 averages (Met Office HadUK-Grid) and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have 12½+ hours of daylight, highs of 15 °C or more and little rain for the town.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 8.3 | 9.9 | 11.7 | 13.8 | 15.6 | 16.6 | 16.2 | 14.6 | 12.5 | 10.6 | 8.8 | 7.9 |
| High (°C) | 8 | 9 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 22 | 21 | 19 | 15 | 11 | 9 |
| Rain (mm) | 101 | 64 | 59 | 59 | 64 | 62 | 72 | 86 | 68 | 100 | 99 | 98 |
March is the driest month (59 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 22 °C). Winter days are short, about 8 hours of daylight in December, and 101 mm of rain falls in January, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 38 nights a year. The climate in Shipham →
4 playgrounds and the nearest beaches
Mapped within 2 km of the village in OpenStreetMap, against the typical UK village its size per resident. Named places are listed with directions; unnamed ones are only counted.
The nearest beaches
Shipham is inland. These are the nearest named beaches, measured from the edge of the village.
Check the water before you swim. The Environment Agency tests designated bathing waters from May to September and publishes a rating for each beach.
Up high. Shute Shelve Hill, at 232 m, is the highest named top within 2 km of Shipham.
Every named place, with directions
Viewpoints 1
Plus 1 viewpoint without a name on the map.
Hills and peaks 2
Playgrounds 4
Plus 4 playgrounds without a name on the map.
Campsites 1
The outdoors in nearby towns
The nearest towns of 1,000+ within 12 miles. Tap a town for its outdoors page.
Churchill, 1.6 miles away, grades A, the best next door: 84% of its residents live within 400 m of a park. Churchill, Winscombe and Sandford and Wrington have at least twice Shipham’s green space per resident.
Questions about the outdoors in Shipham
Is Shipham near a National Park?
It covers 198 km² and was designated in 1989.
What are the best walks near Shipham?
4 waymarked walking routes pass within 2 km of the village, including the The Mendip Trail, The Butcombe Trail and Limestone Link.
What is the nearest beach to Shipham?
Clevedon Beach, 8.9 mi from the edge of the village, then Berrow Sands (9.2 mi). Shipham itself is inland.
How many people in Shipham live near a park?
63% of residents live within 400 m, about a 5-minute walk, of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace). The typical UK town is 83%.
When is the best time of year for walking in Shipham?
May to July and September: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
Is Shipham good for walking?
For paths, yes: 4.0 km of footpath and right of way per square kilometre, more than 81% of UK towns. For park space per person it beats 18% (1.2 ha per 1,000 residents).
How is the Outdoors Grade worked out?
From five measures, each placed among UK towns of 1,000 or more: public green space per resident, the share living near a park, National Park or National Landscape within 5 km, footpaths per square kilometre, and the sea within 5 km. It is a character grade and isn’t part of Shipham’s overall grade.
Where Shipham’s outdoors figures come from
- Parks and green space: Ordnance Survey OS Open Greenspace (parks and gardens, playing fields, play spaces, and their access points). Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- National Parks and National Landscapes: Natural England and Natural Resources Wales boundaries, areas and designation dates, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Footpaths, walking routes, beaches and things to do: © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License (ODbL), via Geofabrik, 16 October 2026.
- Historic parks, listed buildings and monuments: Historic England, National Heritage List for England, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Rain and temperature: Met Office HadUK-Grid 1991–2020 averages for the town; daylight calculated from its latitude.
- The sea: ONS Countries (December 2024) boundaries clipped to mean high water. Residents near a park: ONS Census 2021 output areas.
- Grade: TownRatings’ Outdoors Grade, ranked against UK towns only.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.