North Somerset doesn't get much credit as a walking county. This administrative construction of a county stretches between the Avon Gorge and the Severn estuary, and the Western fringe of the Mendips, is laced with quieter paths — over the Failand ridge, through the wooded Gordano valley, and along routes that open suddenly onto wide views across the Bristol Channel to the Welsh coast.

The boundary with Somerset gets blurred, but there are some great pubs, if you know where to look.

The Black Horse at Clapton-in-Gordano has barely changed since it opened hundreds of years ago! It's one of the country's best pubs, not only North Somerset's. The Miners Rest in Long Ashton, a homage to a bygone era, is tucked away but is coal throwing distance from  Ashton Court and Bristol. The Royal in Portishead sits a stone's throw from the marina and tells a seaside tale of a once planned resort development, and out at West End near Nailsea, the Blue Flame holds one of only a handful of CAMRA-listed historic pub interiors left anywhere in the county. The George at Backwell sums up the village - a fascinating history hiding in plain sight, told here.

And now there are two particularly good reasons to head into the western Mendips. Just a couple of miles apart, the New Inn at Blagdon and the Plume of Feathers at Rickford offer very different walks from neighbouring villages. Blagdon gives you the great sweep of Blagdon Lake, while Rickford takes you higher onto the Mendips to Beacon Batch, through Burrington Combe and into one of the most intriguing little villages in the hills. They make an excellent pairing for anyone wanting to explore this corner of North Somerset on foot — and two very different village pubs to discover at the end.

Below are the walks built around each one — short, doable in an afternoon, and worth doing before the pub at the end of them isn't there anymore.