Burrington Combe - Rock of Ages

There is a legend that Augustus Montague Toplady (1740–1778), who was the curate at Blagdon, was inspired to write the hymn Rock of Ages while sheltering under a rock in the combe during a thunderstorm in the late 18th century. The rock was subsequently named after the hymn. It is now generally accepted that the attribution of this location to the writing of Rock of Ages only arose well after Toplady's death (the 1850s is suggested by Percy Dearmer in Songs of Praise Discussed, 1933) and has no proven factual basis.

The then Vicar at Westbury-on-Trym H. J. Wilkins published a 16-page booklet in 1938 titled "An Enquiry concerning Toplady and his Hymn "Rock of Ages" and its connection with Burrington Combe, Somerset" that found that in relation to the hymn "All available evidence goes to show that it was published in 1776, soon after it was written." Toplady had left the neighbourhood of Burrington Combe in 1764.

In George Lawton's 1983 publication Within the Rock of Ages the author finds the claim that Rock of Ages was written at Burrington Combe to be only a legend, although he does state that "It is extremely doubtful whether at this distance of time, the legend that it was written in a cleft there can be proved or disproved." In George Ella's 2000 study A Debtor to Mercy Alone any links between the hymn and Burrington Combe are again said to be no more than legendary, with readers being referred to Lawton's 1983 study.

C. H. Sisson wrote a poem entitled Burrington Combe, collected in Exactions (Manchester: Carcanet 1980). The local area, including Black Down and Ellick Farm, features prominently in his poetry.