My 67th parkrun was a very special one and one I had been waiting to do for some time. My wife even agreed to join me and walk the course. It is a crazy and bonkers experience and is now potentially my new favourite parkrun. Somerdale Pavilion is located in the Chocolate Quarter of Keynsham (near Bristol), the name given to the plot of land on the site of the former Fry's and Cadbury's factory. The parkrun takes place in an meadow adjacent to the playing fields attached to the Pavilion, and is a very flat two and a bit clockwise course on cut grass and is home to the Curly Wurly (a very tight spiralled section, which is great fun). I understand the course is also used for cyclo-cross and it is very twisty and turny across the whole route. On the day of our visit it was a lovely warm and sunny day and the course was very dry and runnable.
[I first visited this parkrun on 27th July 2024]
Bit of History
The Fry's factory was completed in 1935 and the Cadbury's brothers who owned Fry's Chocolate company were Quakers and due to this the factory site included playing fields, sports facilities and other social provisions. Some of the playing fields have survived to the current day and are still in use. The Fry's (and later Cadbury's) Factory produced many well known Chocolate bars over the years including Fry's Chocolate Creams, Double Deckers, Dairy Milk, Chocolate Buttons, Creme Eggs and Mini Eggs, Chomp, Crunchie and of course Curly Wurly. At it's height the factory even had it's own power station and railway. The factory was in operation for over 70 years until Cadbury's was bought by Kraft food in 2011, who closed the factory, and relocated the equipment and operation to Poland and sold the former Cadbury's site for redevelopment. Three of the original Four blocks of the factory were retained and today operate as a retirement village, some of the former buildings were demolished and redeveloped as new housing, and the Somerdale Pavilion was built in 2015 to provide new sporting and leisure facilities to the local area. Within the Pavilion Foyer is a model of the site prior to it's sale in 2011. I have included a photo of this model below in case you're interested:
Briefings
The fairly short but friendly combined briefing included a request for volunteers, a reminder that parkrun is a run not a race, a brief description of the course "two and a bit laps, including three trips through the Curly Wurly" and an assurance that as long as you follow the cut grass course it is impossible to go wrong (if you end up in the long grass then you have indeed gone wrong). We were also warned not to trust the distance on our GPS watches due to the twisty nature of the course meaning that GPS tracking is affected. Usual instruction to under 11s staying within arms reach of their responsible adults, but advise regarding dogs and buggies was skipped as their were none in attendance (buggies are not explicitly banned here, but owners are asked to take the nature of the cut grass course into account if they run with buggies here). After a reminder to return the finishing tokens after the finish because they lost five tokens the previous week, we were off.
Course Description
Although the course looks complicated it is actually very straightforward. Simply follow the cut grass course, in and out of the Curly Wurly (a tight spiralled section), follow the cut grass course past the finish area all the way around the course and back to the start again, after two complete laps and three trips through the Curly Wurly you pull into the finish area to be scanned. As it is so twisty and the course runs back past itself on so many occasions it is a parkrun where you are almost constantly seeing other faster and slower runners at different points of the course all the way around the route, this makes this parkrun a great one to do with running friends of different abilities, it is great fun. The Curly Wurly section is bonkers, all you can see is runners in front and behind you travelling in all different directions, it is soo much fun!
Difficulty
On a dry summers day like the one we visited on, this is a very easy 1.5 out of 5 with the extra half a point due to the entirely grass course and the twisty nature of the route, which means you spend a lot of time cornering. After a lot of rain, this course has the potential to be muddy and slippery so this would increase the difficulty. However the course is as flat as a pancake so there are no inclines to deal with. One final note on difficulty and that is to bring some bug spray as the insect population is thriving and bites are common here.
Elevation
With only 3m of elevation, this is one of the flattest parkruns I have ever run. See for yourself on the graph below:
Parking, Facilities and Coffee
Somerdale Pavilion has it's own car park with charges currently 60p per hour, with plenty of spaces, as well as toilets and it's own café. Somerdale Pavilion, Keynsham, BS31 2FW
Other Points of Interest
Apparently there are the remains of a small Roman Villa in the grounds of Somerdale Factory, near the main road entrance to the site. I did not know about these before my visit, so didn't get a photo sorry!
Somewhere to stay?
We stopped over at Premier Inn Bristol South, which is about 15 mins drive from Somerdale. It was a fairly standard Premier Inn, but was very noisy, with some kind of disturbance at the Brewers Fayre next door until late into the evening and people making a lot of noise from around 4am, possibly early morning departures. The Brewers Fayre was much quieter the next morning when we had breakfast there.
Summary
A totally and utterly bonkers fun & flat parkrun. Cut grass cyclo-cross hilarity, and the most twisty course you are ever likely to encounter. Best enjoyed on a summers morning with lots of running friends. Possibly my new favourite parkrun course, it was sooo much fun. Don't forget to bring your own Curly Wurlys for photo opportunities (we didn't do this) oh and pack some bug spray as well and don't forget to apply it like I did.
Links
Link to official parkrun site for this course: https://www.parkrun.org.uk/somerdalepavilion/
My YouTube Video Review of this parkrun:
Comments